


From Lowest Place When Virtuous Things Proceed

by Stregatrek



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Ace Charles, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-War, Quite Astounding Amounts of Yearning, all we do is quote shakespeare and yearn, also some light Trapper shaming, are you looking for chaos and bad jokes and the mortifying ordeal of being known? you found it, chaotic bi Hawkeye, clear communication vis a vis consent and sexuality, some light Trapper apologism, sometimes love is going on a road trip with the man you love's ex boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28491975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stregatrek/pseuds/Stregatrek
Summary: It is, technically, true that McIntyre could go next week. But Charles has Pierce’s address scribbled in the other surgeon’s near-illegible scrawl, folded in his address book and kept in his jacket pocket. He sighs. “Very well, then-” He marches McIntyre to the Bentley, holding open the passenger door.John stares at him. “What, you and me? Go now?”
Relationships: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce/Charles Emerson Winchester III, mentioned Charles/Donna, mentioned hawkeye/trapper
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33





	1. Things Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_raven/gifts).



_**“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”**_  


**― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well**  


Before the Korean war, his life is full of small inconveniences, pressures that felt like several atmospheres but in hindsight seem more like an uncomfortable coat.  


One of the smallest of these inconveniences is John McIntyre, who steals his (designated- _designated!)_ parking spot at least twice a week and tries to start fights about whether football or polo is better (polo- POLO, obviously, for the love of god, man).  


Overseas, he wishes sometimes for that fight. Particularly once the transfer out of Tokyo is finalized- sitting in his tent in Korea with the two men voted most likely to spontaneously combust, he remembers days when his most imperative struggle was to make Honoria wear a coat against the wind, to drive quickly and beat the insufferable Dr. McIntyre to a parking spot that was _his_ to begin with. If he gets in bed early enough, drunk enough, and Pierce and Hunnicutt don’t ruin it with their noise and chaos, he can live through an entire day in his mind. He can read the paper over a breakfast that tastes like _food_ , with his sister snipping at him good-naturedly, and he can cajole her into some semblance of propriety before he drives to the hospital- _just_ in time to slide his Bentley into _his_ parking spot and see McIntyre stick his hand out the window of his decidedly-not-a-Bentley in a rude gesture as he circles the lot. See patients, do a job he is _good_ at and _trained_ for, not desperately competing with death and the army for one moment more to save a life he wouldn’t recognize in a crowd. Lunch in the hospital cafeteria with the department heads, knowing he is going to be one of them in truth soon, so soon, the Head of Thoracic Surgery. Dinner with friends of his fathers- this is the same way McIntyre is, in his mind, something he hated at the time and resents missing. But it was _normal_. And if it were a normal Friday, he’d pick Honoria up, and change, and they’d go to the symphony and sit in the dark, and he could tip his head back and _really listen_ , lose himself, float somewhere that felt like it does when Pierce’s hand is on his shoulder and those laughing eyes are soft.  


The war has its inconveniences, too, and somehow the fact that they come amongst far worse suffering makes them _harder_ to overlook, not easier. If he cared to listen to a psychologist, he supposes they’d tell him it’s because his emotions are heightened, here. When one is tense, it takes the barest second to snap, but when one is relaxed much more stress can be borne, and smaller stresses do not push a relaxed, sane person over the edge.  


None of them are relaxed or sane, in this place.  


Tonight, as with so many nights, they’re not even sober.  


“Have I told you this story?” Hawkeye tips, his martini amazingly level, like the head of a chicken failing to move as the body does. BJ shakes his head no. Charles reaches for another drink. “So,” Pierce begins. “There we were, me and Trapper,”  


Hunnicutt’s expression twists; Charles’ upper lip is too stiff to make that face. “And?” He prompts when it appears that Pierce has lost his train of thought somewhere in his shallow glass.  


“Oh, right, yeah- here goes- so, Henry gets this desk, right,”  


“I thought this story was about- Trapper?” Charles peers at him. “Henry was…”  


“Colonel Blake.” Hawkeye toasts, knocking his drink back. “Gimme a refill.”  


Hunnicutt does it, getting up and fumbling with the still.  


“And Henry’s desk,” Pierce continues, nodding his thanks as he accepts his refill. “It was _nice_. You know, real nice, dunno how the army has desks so nice and can’t keep our lights on.” He sips his gin. Charles finds himself listing closer and rights himself, distantly mindful not to spill any alcohol. “So there we were, me and Trapper. And we needed some supplies, y’know, the army gets us a desk but not the stuff we need to do our jobs. Save _lives_. So. So we-” he’s laughing, not his full hyena sound but approaching it asymptotically, and Charles winces. “It’s- we traded his desk to the black market, y’know, so we have to figure out how to move this- this desk- and it’s a _nice_ desk, it’s big, so we- we got it airlifted out. With a chopper,” he devolves into that shrieking laugh and Winchester can’t help but smile into his drink. “So Henry’s standin’ there watchin’ his desk fly away- and me an’ McIntyre-”  


“McIntyre?”  


“Yeah, yeah, Trapper. Trapper, John McIntyre.”  


Charles straightens himself up as much as he can- that gin is stronger than it ought to be. “He, ah, wouldn’t happen to hail from Boston?,”  


Pierce smiles, bright and drunk. “Yep- hold on,” his expression goes slack, and Charles squints across the dim tent, watching two and two add up to four. “Oh my god,” the head surgeon is grinning again, nearly vibrating with the energy of it. “ _You_ know Trapper,”  


Charles slams back his drink. Peripherally, he sees Hunnicutt do the same. “It- ah- regrettably, yes.”  


“Oh my god, you _know_ Trapper! Oh, god, you should have been here, he was-” he starts laughing, making that terrible sound and drumming his heels on the floor, and Winchester can’t imagine what John McIntyre might have done to earn himself such accolades. “He had _great_ ideas sometimes, but mostly he just- oh, he and I- we really- we really-” he’s laughing again, listing drunkenly. “I’m surprised Margaret never tossed us in the mine field, some of the things we did, but other stuff- Adam’s Ribs,”  


“I hadn’t realized he was a religious man,” Charles slurs, not sure he’s heard right.  


“He- he’s not, Adam’s Ribs is a takeout joint, in Chicago, we ordered from there one time,”  


“From Chicago to Korea?”  


“Oh, we called in all kinda favors, you should have seen it. And then we _finally_ get ribs, unwrap ‘em on the table, and,” Hawkeye snaps. “Incoming wounded. Never fails.”  


BJ sighs heavily. “Yeah, I heard that story. Sorry, Hawk.”  


“Ah, it’s not- it’s not the worst. You know. Lotta people have lost a lot more than just ribs. Food kind, real kind. I _do_ miss that damn place, though,”  


His voice is dampening, and Winchester is tempted to write himself a note on the inside cover of one of his books- order ribs from Adam. He’s not sure it’ll make sense in the morning. That said, he’s not sure it makes sense _now._  


“I miss _him_ , too,” Hawkeye’s voice is soft, hunched over and staring into his drink.  


Winchester and Hunnicutt exchange a look, so rarely united, and move to sit on either side of Pierce. Charles’ hand is hesitant as it comes to rest on Hawkeye’s back, rubbing between his shoulder blades. Hunnicutt takes the drink from Pierce’s hands and reaches to set it on the dresser. “It’s alright, Hawk,” he says softly. “It’ll- it’ll be fine.”  


“He didn’t- he didn’t even leave a _note_. I dunno his address. How am I- how is it supposed to be fine?”  


BJ and Charles make eye contact over his head, looking helpless. “I, ah, I am sure that Honoria could get it from the hospital,” Winchester tries, fighting his drunkenness for something approaching the proper pronunciation of his sister’s name. “If you’d- like to write him.”  


Hawkeye shakes his head. “He didn’t even leave a _note._ I- I guess- I don’t wanna… bother him.”  


It’s a pitiful tone in the Chief Surgeon’s voice, and Charles pats his back heavily for emphasis as he says, “When I return home, I shall see to it that he pays for his behavior,” his voice is colder than a Korean winter, imperious like the Russian guard, and BJ looks up with raised eyebrows.  


Hawkeye shakes his head. “Don’ bother. It’s- s’over.” He heaves a deep breath and visibly forces himself to smile. “Hand me my drink, there, Beej, sorry to bring the party down.”  


“Not t’all,” Charles slurs, hand thumping reassuringly on Hawkeye’s back- too hard, judging by the way he knocks the other surgeon forward. The rest of the night fades to black, lost in the taste of terrible gin and melancholy, and admittedly, Winchester tries to put the conversation out of his mind, because there is no point in righteous anger when there is no resolution in sight- he can hardly call the family lawyers and explain that he would like a man removed for failing to leave a note to a fellow draftee. Honoria would take him at his word if he told her it was important, but talented as his sister is he doubts that even she could come up with a resolution that would satisfy him more than confronting McIntyre face to face. He wonders if Mulcahy would teach him to box.  



	2. Things Present: Part One

“ _You_ ,” Charles hasn’t heard his own voice so strident in weeks, not since Korea, and he matches it with a march, backing McIntyre into a wall.  


“Hey, hey, it wasn’t me! The spot was taken when I got there!”  


Charles is crowding him back, taking full advantage of his build. “I don’t _care_ about the parking spot,” He’s louder than he ever was at home before, loud the way Korea made him with fear and resentment and disbelief. He’s snarling in McIntyre’s face, surprised at himself- the list of people he feels this protective feral thing in his chest for is short, so short. Honoria, of course, and a baby girl who was never given a name, a soldier who made him remember his sister- and Hawkeye Pierce, of all people. It drives him to take the other doctor by the front of his scrubs, dragging him up the wall, leaning in close.“You are a pathetic excuse for a human being and I _cannot_ abide your _deplorable_ -”  


“What the hell?!” McIntyre shoves him, surprisingly strong.  


Charles takes the step back without losing his balance or the force of his tirade. “You _leave_ without even a _note_ , without a single word- and what did you do, to be discharged so fast? Hm?”  


“What are you _talkin’_ about?” McIntyre demands, shouting back now.  


With a dismissive sound, Winchester says, “And forgotten too- I am _talking,_ Dr. McIntyre, about your treatment of Hawkeye Pierce.” He watches the blood drain from McIntyre’s face, then come flooding back, his face going red beneath his curly blond hair. “Ah, now you recall, I trust? It must be difficult, existing with so limited a mind; little wonder you forgot to write. Perhaps you’re not to blame, if you lack even _object permanence_ it is clearly too much to ask that-”  


McIntyre shoves him again, harder this time, and Charles regrets that he never learned to box. He’s _fairly_ certain that he shouldn’t tuck his thumb, if he decides to throw a punch. “ _You_ know Hawkeye?” McIntyre is loud, his gestures large as he puts his hand in the middle of Charles’ chest and pushes once more, putting the taller surgeon on his back foot. “What, were you his replacement? Dig through his things? You would, you bastard, looking for notes on how to be a better doctor- _fuck you,_ if you think you can- if you don’t think I miss him,”  


“You profess to _miss him,_ and you couldn’t even leave a note? A pathetic excuse for a friend,” Charles pushes back, surprised by how satisfying it is to send McIntyre stumbling into the wall. “Korea is hellish enough without the complete loss of a friend, even one as poor in every sense as yourself,”  


“You can’t walk in here and call me pathetic, you son of a bitch, of course I miss him, whaddya want me to do?” McIntyre’s right hand curls into a fist.  


Winchester scoffs, one eye on that hand in case it starts to come toward him. “You could have started by _writing_ ,” he says, feeling the very distinct urge to use his- somewhat limited- karate skills. Ah, wartime lessons. “But the war is _over_ , McIntyre, surely even you have noticed, little as you seem to care about those who were still caught in it, and Crabapple Cove is hardly _far_ ,”  


“ _What_?”  


Rolling his eyes, Charles is at his most condescending when he says, exaggeratedly slowly, “I shall teach you to use a map, McIntyre, if you promise not to perform surgery before you learn to _read_. A man who considered _you_ a best friend- for reasons _completely_ beyond my comprehension- lives not four hours away and you cannot find it in yourself to _visit_.”  


“Lives?”  


“Do you prefer a different verb, McIntyre? How about ‘resides,’ is that too advanced? Hawkeye in Maine,” He says the last mockingly, each word over-emphasized, scorn in every syllable.  


“He’s _dead_ ,” there’s an ugly catch in McIntyre’s voice, and it sounds the way Charles imagines he would feel, if it were true.  


That catches him off guard. “Whatever gave you that impression?”  


“Gee, maybe it was the letter I got back from the army- _when I wrote_ , marked ‘D.’”  


Winchester shakes his head. “No. He is in Maine.” His mouth twists. “Though I’ve been known to call Crabapple Cove worse things than the Underworld,”  


“ _What_ \- what are you saying?”  


“The very _obvious_ truth is that Hawkeye Pierce is alive. What did you _think_ I was saying? Or are you so dense that every fact must be spelled out? How far back must I go for you to gain clarity- will birth do, or should I begin with the creation of the Earth?”  


McIntyre pushes him again, but the gesture turns into a hand fisted in his shirt, something that should make him fear a punch but feels instead like he has become an anchor. “You’re tellin’ me,” the blond’s voice is slow, “that Hawkeye is home? And he’s okay?”  


Charles briefly sees the cracks, the ones they all carry, and considers a definition of ‘okay’ that will answer McIntyre’s question the way it is intended. “Precisely.”  


“I could see him.”  


“You ought to, in fact. Apologize for your _atrocious_ goodbye, or lack thereof. Were I you, I would crawl hat in hand to his door.” That was too much, too far, his voice is rough- but McIntyre doesn’t notice, his eyes unseeing.  


“I toldja, I left a note. Something must’ve- _Frank_. Ferret face must’ve thrown it away.”  


Searching his memory, all Charles comes up with are a few drunken comments of Margaret’s that could as easily have applied to one D. Penobscot, and- “ah- ‘Frank Burns eats worms,’ I believe was the phrase,”  


McIntyre laughs hollowly, scrubs at the back of his neck with his hand. “I- uh, I don’t know that one,” he shakes his head, lets go of the front of Charles’ shirt. “Sounds like Hawkeye, though,”  


“Hm, that must have been Hunnicutt. I never did know. I replaced him. Burns, I mean, not Hunnicutt.”  


“Who’s Hunnicutt?”  


“Ah- a Californian. Your replacement, as it were.”  


McIntyre makes a face. “A Californian.”  


That makes the corner of Winchester’s mouth turn up. “Yes, quite.”  


They stare at each other for a moment before John holds out his hand. “Truce? I’m sorry I called you a bastard. I thought- well, I didn’t know you actually _knew_ Hawkeye.”  


Charles shakes the proffered hand, letting go as quickly as he can. “Quite well, I like to think.”  


His hands scrubbing over his mouth, McIntyre’s voice is quiet. “Me too,”  


“All the more reason to visit as soon as possible,” Charles puts his hands in his pockets. He wants to bundle Trapper into the car, pin a note on him- _here is your friend, with a better excuse than I could have imagined._ “Come along,” he takes John’s elbow and leads him toward the parking lot. “You are going _now._ ”  


“Might be a little hard to walk to Crabapple Cove,”  


“You haven’t got your car?”  


McIntyre shakes his head. “In the shop. Louise dropped me off today. But it’s okay. I can go next week. Do you, uh, do you know his address?”  


It is, technically, true that McIntyre could go next week. But Charles has Pierce’s address scribbled in the other surgeon’s near-illegible scrawl, folded in his address book and kept in his jacket pocket. He sighs. “Very well, then-” He marches McIntyre to the Bentley, holding open the passenger door.  


John stares at him. “What, you and me? Go _now_?”  


“If you do not, I shall be forced to retrieve _him_ , and separating him from that _backwater_ would be difficult enough, but his laugh is intolerable in enclosed spaces. I trust you and I can at least sit silently.”  


McIntyre cracks a smile. “That sound he makes _is_ pretty bad,” he agrees. “It’s- uh, it’s nice of you to-”  


“Just get in.” Charles sighs, knowing he’s going to regret this in short order, but unable to stomach the idea of Hawkeye Pierce existing for one more day thinking himself abandoned. It’s a rather noble cause, he thinks to himself with no small amount of sarcasm, picturing the Bentley as his steed. Hopefully it will not prove to be a tilt toward a windmill- though imagining John McIntyre as the diminutive Sancho Panza does make him feel slightly better about the whole thing. He wants to call ahead, but- it seems rather late for that, at this point. Besides, Hawkeye will be home. It’s Thursday, and he always has dinner with his father- his dad- on Thursdays, if their post-war telephone conversations are to be believed. Hopefully two extra guests will be welcome this week.  


They _do_ sit silently, thank the powers that be- until they’re merging from surface street to highway.  


“You’re gonna wanna take this,”  


“It is faster not to, and I should prefer to be in the car with you for as little time as possi- _McIntyre_ ,” He takes one hand off the wheel to put it on the blond’s face, pushing him away, trying to break his grip on the steering wheel. “Let go, you brainless peon, you’re going to cause an accident,”  


The other doctor tries to duck out of his hand, one of his own hands still firmly on the wheel. “You’re going to get us stuck in traffic, idiot,”  


“ _I_ am familiar with the quickest _route_ , now let _go_ ,” He jams his knee under the wheel and grits his teeth, uses his other hand to pry McIntyre’s fingers away, trying to get his hand under the blond’s jaw to force his head away.  


“You’re goin’ the _slow_ way,”  


“I am _not_.” He turns to look over his shoulder, pulling the wheel to keep the car on track, and McIntyre sways, Charles’ blunt nails catching on his skin.  


“ _Ouch_ , bastard, watch it,”  


“I would apologize, but you were putting us in danger of a wreck. Or of even _longer_ on the road, which would be infinitely worse given the company” Charles casts a wary glance at him, on guard against potential further hijackings of the steering wheel. “There is a first-aid kit in the glove box.”  


McIntyre laughs ruefully, daubing rubbing alcohol on his face. “There go my odds of winning him with my looks,” he jokes, too rough. If Charles hadn’t heard precisely the same jokes, the same tone, from Hawkeye, it wouldn’t have made his hands tighten on the wheel. Luckily, McIntyre doesn’t notice (or comment on) his silence. “You said you replaced Burns,”  


“I did.”  


“How were things without him? You hear the good stories?”  


“Some,” Charles allows. “He sounds… well, completely intolerable. Though I must admit, the stories I heard were… limited. I was a Major, as well, and stood rather… apart.”  


“Hm.” Trapper glances over at him. “Didn’ think you were over there long enough to make it to Major. What’s a promotion usually take, six years?”  


“Something like.” Charles agrees, still looking warily at McIntyre out the corner of his eye. “I was… promoted for good behavior.” _As a favor. Favors in return for favors, playing social politics in Tokyo before I knew what real politics looked like from the ground, the way shells reshape lines on a map and the bodies in the way._ “And you?”  


“My rank? Captain, same as the other incoming doctors who don’t get special favors.” McIntyre shrugs. “So, you must’ve known Radar, then.”  


“Briefly,” Charles acknowledges. “He was replaced as company clerk by Maxwell Klinger.”  


McIntyre whoops, a sound which startles Winchester badly enough that he jumps. “Klinger, huh? That crazy son of a bitch. Lemme guess, first official act as clerk- forge the CO’s signature on a Section Eight.”  


“That may have been his third act,” Charles allows with a slight smile. “He did eventually step into the duties rather… well.”  


“Bet the camp was kickin’ up when Klinger started.” He stops, silent for a moment. “Radar didn’t… Klinger didn’t start clerking because Radar… couldn’t.”  


Charles shakes his head. “O’Reilly returned home. Some trouble on the family farm.” He writes, sometimes, still promises that get-together their parents arranged at Hunnicutt’s party, though when Radar will have time to leave the farm is rather uncertain. But McIntyre need not know that.  


“Oh, good. That’s good. Sweet kid.”  


“Indeed.”  


They lapse back into silence. McIntyre flips down the mirror to check his face again, but the scratch is superficial.  


Charles wishes to turn on the radio, but more than anything else he can think of he does not want to listen to music with John McIntyre beside him.  


They drive another hour.  


“So, uh,” McIntyre breaks the silence uncomfortably. “Did you- did you play any sports, in college?”  


Charles dips his head. “Crewing and polo. And you?”  


“Football. Boxed in Korea, though, once,” he laughs.  


_Football, of course. Seems the type._ “With Mulcahy?”  


“The Padre? No, no,” he laughs. “Fella came through- it’s a long story.”  


If it were Pierce, Charles would shrug, say, ‘we have time in abundance.’ But it is markedly _not_ Pierce, and a not-insignificant part of him is tempted to put McIntyre in the trunk. He thinks Pierce might be displeased if he arrived in Crabapple Cove and unpacked John McIntyre like a particularly annoying suitcase. The mental picture makes him smile, corner of his lips turning up, but he says nothing.  


It’s only a few more minutes before McIntyre asks, “How’s Hot Lips?”  


“I beg your pardon?”  


John grins. “Margaret Houlihan. Blonde, knockout, went around with Ferret Face.”  


“You called her _Hot Lips?_ ” Charles has always had a respect for Margaret he finds difficult to define and impossible to ignore, and the idea of her allowing a nickname like ‘Hot Lips’ to stick is both infuriating and saddening.  


“Yeah,” McIntyre is laughing. “She’d go around with anybody with a gold cluster or better on their collar.”  


Tempted to pull over and make McIntyre _walk_ back to Boston on two broken legs, Winchester’s voice has the foreboding sound of a glacier cracking when he says, “ _Margaret_ is one of the finest women I have known, military correctness notwithstanding, and if I hear you sully her name or refer to her with that derogatory nickname once more I shall give you much worse than that scratch on your face.” His hands are tight on the steering wheel in what he considers a truly heroic effort to not strangle the blond in the passenger seat.  


Hands up again, McIntyre leans back. “Hey, cool it, alright. I won’t.” He pauses for a moment, then casts a sidelong glance at Charles, the corner of his mouth pulling up. “You mentioned you were a Major? You and she didn’t ever…”  


“ _No_.” There was the time with the food poisoning, but he is _not_ telling that story to the man beside him. _What did Pierce ever see in YOU?_ He wonders.  


“Hey, just asking. I took a couple looks, you know.”  


“I hope you made extensive amends. That Margaret should be _looked upon_ , indeed, _thought of_ by the likes of _you_ ,”  


Smirking, John answers, “If you’re trying to convince me you didn’t, uh, put a hanger on the door with her, it’s not working.”  


Charles’ hands tighten on the wheel, his jaw flexing. McIntyre has touched a sore spot, though he can’t know it, and if he did he’d likely misunderstand the reason. “Moments ago I was contemplating packing you in the trunk. I decided not to. I am now reconsidering.”  


Infuriatingly, that makes McIntyre _laugh_. “Look, honey, you’re a big guy, but I can box. So just try it.”  


“ _Honey_?” The car swerves as he turns to look at McIntyre.  


John’s hands are up, defensive. “Figure of speech, don’t take it personal,”  


Charles settles back into the seat, biting back a torrent of vitriol. _Hawkeye_ , he keeps reminding himself. There is a point to this exercise. In… slightly under two hours, he will be able to see Hawkeye. And Hawkeye will be pleased, happy, glad to see him because he is the bearer of John McIntyre, who is ‘ _really something, Trap…_ ’  


It takes him nearly three quarters of an hour to stop seeing red.  


“How- ah, how is Louise?”  


John turns to stare at him. “You remember my wife’s name?”  


Charles shrugs. Perhaps John hasn’t heard about his wife and Honoria and their rather… colorful shared past. Well, _this_ is certainly not the time to tell him. “That _is_ how we met, is it not? When I was in Pediatrics, your wife brought your eldest to her appointment, and you picked her up.” _And then stole my parking space for two years and tried to start fights about sports._ “How are your daughters? Pierce mentioned you had two, now,”  


“Yeah. Yeah. He remembered that?”  


“I should imagine he remembers a great deal about you.”  


To his surprise, McIntyre puts his face in his hands. “God, I just bet. I- I don’t-”  


With absolutely no idea what to say, Charles sits silently. ‘There, there,’ seems _stunningly_ inadequate, and he doesn’t much care to offer sympathy to McIntyre in any case.  


Taking a deep breath, John looks up. “Did he ever- did he ever talk about me?”  


“Yes,” it’s a reluctant acknowledgement, wanting so badly to say no, to say that John McIntyre made no impression, was forgotten as soon as he was gone. But that wouldn’t hold up for very long. Still, being honest doesn’t mean he has to be _nice_ \- “Mostly that you left without saying goodbye.”  


McIntyre sighs. “I _told you_ , I left a note. And I wrote. When it came back marked ‘D’ like that- what was I supposed to do? I thought he was gone.”  


Having only heard the story of the army mix-up once from Hunnicutt, after Pierce had woken in the night worried that he was a ghost, there is nothing much Winchester can say to McIntyre except, “and you wrote _no one_ else? Not even Margaret?”  


“I wasn’t… no, I didn’t.”  


There’s something more behind those words, but Charles doesn’t care to know McIntyre’s private pain, particularly not to lessen it. “Hm,” He snorts. “In any case, you shall see him in, ah,” either his watch is running slowly or time with McIntyre is _that_ painful- “just over an hour.”  


“An hour, huh?” McIntyre stares out the window. “It’s been _years_ , and now an hour feels like- feels like forever. Funny about time,” He heaves a sigh. “Hey look, cows,”  


Charles doesn’t look. “They do live here.”  


“I _know_. Just don’t get outta the city much.”  


“Nor do I, yet you do not see me ogling farm animals.”  


“You wouldn’t know a good ogle if it were naked in your office.”  


“After living with Pierce for two years? I assure you, I am familiar.”  


McIntyre laughs. “He didn’t change much, then.”  


Charles shrugs. “I wouldn’t know how he was, in the beginning. However, he did… there was some, ah, rather unfortunate business…” he doesn’t really want to say, not to McIntyre, doesn’t want to tell Hawkeye’s secrets for him. “He may be different now than you recall. War has that effect, I understand.”  


“Didn’t make you any different. Still a bastard. Louder now, maybe.”  


“Perhaps my flawless genetics and robust constitution have rendered me immune to the ravages.” He says it smoothly enough, for how blatant a lie it is, and McIntyre laughs.  


Shaking his head, he gestures between the two of them. “Never thought I’d be in your car. ‘Specially not on a road trip. Dontcha have a driver?”  


Charles inclines his head. “I do, however, I lent him to my sister for the day. She wanted to go to New York, and I’d prefer her to not drive in the dark on her way home.”  


“You have a sister?”  


_Definitely hasn’t heard about Louise and Honoria, then._ “I do.”  


“Huh. Never really pictured you with a family. You, uh, you married?”  


“No.”  


“Oh.”  


The sound of the tires on the road fills the car for too brief a time, New England speeding by. Charles is driving faster than he ought; equal parts needing to see Pierce and escape the small space he’s confined himself in with McIntyre. He has questions he wants to ask of the man beside him, burning in the back of his mind- what _was_ Hawkeye like, in those early days? Are there photographs from before his black hair went silver and the worry lines deepened in his face? The last time I called he sounded distant- can you fix that? _I wish **I** could._  


“Cows,” McIntyre points again.  


Charles rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_ , McIntyre, they _live_ here,” he says it as though he were speaking to a particularly stubborn eleven year old. “What is your obsession with the local farm animals? Seeking a kindred spirit?”  


“Bastard. Just talking. Talking is a thing people do to be polite, which is when you’re _nice_ to each other even if you don’t wanna be.”  


Close to reaching over and giving the man a bruise to go with the scratch marks, Charles sighs. “Politeness is usually reserved for those whose opinions you _care_ about. Since I could not possibly care less what you think of me, I feel no call whatsoever to make _small talk_ with you.”  


“You’re just gonna ignore me all day? And when we drive back? ‘Round the hospital?” He huffs a disbelieving laugh, a reluctant smile spreading. “Damn, you’re a bastard, but you’re impressive about it.”  


“‘My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.’”  


“What’d I _do_?”  


“Besides stealing my parking space and abandoning your best friend in Korea?” _And calling Margaret **Hot Lips?**_  


McIntyre raises a fist threateningly. “I _did not_ , and you better remember it. And the parking space thing is _funny_.”  


Winchester reaches over to bat his hand down. “You have a juvenile sense of humor. And you caused a great deal of pain, intentionally or not. You ought to repent even as a professional courtesy- ‘ _first, do no harm_.’”  


“Said the pot to the kettle,” McIntyre snorts, gesturing at the scratch on his face.  


“Self defense,” Charles snaps back. “And in service of keeping the car on the road.”  


“Whatever helps you sleep tonight, honey,”  


“ _Don’t_ -”  


McIntyre rolls his eyes, interrupting with a sarcastic, “‘Dr. Winchester.’ Shame there’s not a snappy little rhyme. Frank Burns eats worms is pretty good- bet Hawkeye came up with all sorts of stuff to call you, huh?” He’s shaking out his hand almost idly.  


_Yes. But he also called me by my name… and he picked up Chaz, Charlie, Chuckles._ Sometimes when he is alone he remembers the few times those nicknames were sincere in their camaraderie. For an instant, he misses Donna so badly it sears through his chest like a meteor falling to earth. And then he’s back in the car with McIntyre, driving to see Hawkeye Pierce, and the bottom falls out of his stomach all over again- and if his emotions are going to insist on dragging his internal organs through such gymnastics he is going to have to invest in some kind of practice mat. There are too many hard surfaces and sharp edges inside of him for these kinds of acrobatics. “And your nickname comes from where?”  


McIntyre flushes hot. “Are you _tryin_ to start a fight with me?”  


“If I wished to humiliate you, I have far better ways than to do so in a physical competition. One you would surely lose.”  


“Honey, I’d grind you into the dirt and not even look back.”  


“But neither would you leave a note.”  


The pain flares bright and sharp at the side of his face, and it’s probably army training that makes him throw one arm up in defense as he wedges his knee beneath the wheel again, looking at McIntyre even as he leans away, putting as much distance as possible between them. “I told you,” the blond is grinding out, his face red. “I _did_.”  


“You _punched_ me,” Charles touches the side of his face, his zygomatic bone- it’s tender, but his fingertips don’t come away bloody. “I am _driving_. If you are going to insist on fisticuffs you might wait until your life is not in my hands.”  


“You wouldn’t crash your pretty car.” McIntyre turns away, looks out the window.  


Charles grits his teeth. He wants to shout- he has _many_ things he’d like to say to McIntyre, none of them any less than scathing, but also terribly revealing. The words crashing like waves against the jagged shores of his teeth would beat them both bloody. _I hate you for what you did to him_ is not a sentiment which can be expressed in any way that does not make it sound true and raw.  


Still watching McIntyre warily, Charles lowers his hand, glances between the road and the blond in the passenger seat. “I trust you won’t do that again.”  


McIntyre shrugs one shoulder.  


That’s as good as he’s going to get, he would bet. So he looks back to the road, face smarting and heart pounding, his wounded pride roaring up his throat to fight with his reason.  


They pull off the highway, eventually, Charles navigating on half-remembered directions and the fact that there are so few roads in town that one of them has to go where he wants.  


“What should I say?”  


“Why are you asking me?”  


McIntyre shrugs. “No one else to talk to.”  


“I am attempting to navigate this backwater without running afoul of EVERY pothole they’ve managed to curate. Talk to yourself.”  


Trapper sighs. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this car.”  


“Shut up. Your inane prattle is slowing the wayfinding process.”  


“You shut up. Just drop me off and you can head back- I’d rather _walk_ than have to sit in the car with you both ways. And your damn ego is gonna smother the whole town.”  


Charles rolls his eyes, turning off what he guesses is the main street onto the one he has written on the scrap of paper in his breast pocket. His mouth is dry, heart in his throat, and he is exasperated with himself. _Drop him off and leave._ Probably the best course of action. A quick hello, perhaps… He pictures that smile, that absurd grin that spreads over Pierce’s face, wrinkling his eyes and making him look _young_. “Ah, here we are,” he pulls to the side of the graveled driveway, putting the Bentley in park. The poor car feels out of place, he imagines, like a Harvard graduate at the county fair. “Get out.” He opens his door. “I am merely going to stretch my legs.” He’s not sure if he says the last for McIntyre’s benefit or his own, trying desperately to bend his will to what he knows he _ought_ to do, wave a polite hello and drive back to Boston, forget this fool’s errand and the man he is on it for.  


Watching John walk up the steps, Charles leans against his Bentley, hands deep in his pockets. _What it means to come home_ … he had known for himself, when Honoria met him at the airport, throwing her arms around him without a thought for propriety. Life beyond that moment was irrevocably changed. And so was he, he reflects, looking down at the dirt. _Go. Get in the car._ He doesn’t move. His face hurts. He should have looked in the mirror- but then, what would he find that he can offer to Pierce? No more than usual- quite possibly less.  


McIntyre looks over his shoulder, standing at the front door.  


Charles looks back, folding his arms across his chest and raising one eyebrow challengingly. _I will not do it for you,_ he is saying, and McIntyre knocks.  


“Honey, I’m home,” McIntyre knocks again, stronger, calling out for all the world like it’s the door of the Swamp, and Charles hates him for the ease in the gesture.  


It takes a moment, but the door opens, and Charles’ heart twists. Pierce looks so much _younger_ , though none of the grey has left his hair, and he stares mutely at John.  


“Hawkeye,” McIntyre is loud. “You’re okay,”  


The confusion deepens, furrowing his brow, and then he catches sight of Charles, over McIntyre’s shoulder, and a smile starts. ‘ _Look_ ,’ Charles wants to shout. ‘ _Look, I gave you your friend back, isn’t that what you wanted?_ ’ and he hates it that he wants to know _have I finally done right by you_. “The, ah- the army’s mix-up, Pierce,” he explains, projecting his voice. “Seems Mr. McIntyre received returned post marked ‘D.’”  


“ _Doctor_ McIntyre, even if you don’t like it.” Trapper is shooting him a baleful look. “And that’s the short version,” he turns back to Hawkeye. “I left a note, Hawk, I swear I did. Frank must’ve thrown it out, I always wondered why you never wrote. An’ then I got that letter back, and- I- Hawk, I can’t believe you’re _okay_ ,”  


“I’m- yeah, Trap, I’m okay,” Pierce’s hands are hesitant as they reach for his friend, settling on John’s shoulders. “You’re _here_.” A smile breaks over his face, finally, and releases tension Charles didn’t realize he was carrying, even if it’s not directed at him. “God, come in, you’ve gotta meet dad, how are you? Wish I knew where Ferret Face wound up, I’d give him hell for this one,”  


“What _did_ happen? To Ferret Face, I mean, that landed you with,” he hooks his thumb over his shoulder at Charles, who stiffens.  


“Breakdown when Margaret got married,”  


“Hot Lips got _what_?”  


Charles clears his throat loudly.  


“Margaret, Margaret- who’d she marry, Hawk?”  


“Some Lieutenant Colonel, turned out to be a real scumbag,”  


“No kidding?” Trapper’s hand is at Hawkeye’s elbow. “I… hot damn, Hawkeye, you’re _okay,_ ”  


With a bright smile, Hawkeye presses his hand to his chest. “Just okay? I really must be losing my touch.” He turns that look on Winchester. “You coming inside, Chuckles, or are you afraid the middle class might get on you?”  


If he could hold on to his familial traits through a _war_ \- cunning, aloof, transactional by very nature but not without honor, not without dignity- surely those hallowed walls ought not collapse under the force of a single smile. He has the gravity of his name on his shoulders, as he always has, but it’s never felt so much like it’s holding him down. “Pierce,” he intends it to come out rough as ever, but it doesn’t. Very likely never will again. “I… have appointments to keep. I will happily send a driver up for McIntyre, on the morrow or- later in the week, if you’d like.”  


“Go on in, Trap, introduce yourself to dad.” Pierce clatters down the stairs, almost comically skidding to a stop beside Winchester. “Charles,” Hawkeye’s hand wraps around his wrist. “You sure you can’t stay? Just a night.”  


Just a night. Looking away from Pierce’s eyes is difficult, but he does it- he couldn’t bear it if McIntyre were watching them. He’s not, having gone inside as directed. Looking at Hawkeye’s fingers against the pulse-point beneath his skin, Charles clears his throat. “One night, would, ah, perhaps…”  


“Please,”  


_I am a cold man_ \- he knows it, it hurts but he knows- what does it mean, then, that he has melted under that touch once again as though it were only yesterday that the only thing he looked forward to was that hand on his shoulder. “Alright,” he agrees, his voice subdued as it rarely is, and Hawkeye’s hand squeezes tighter.  


“Thanks,” he murmurs. “For bringing me Trapper. It’s- I’m glad he didn’t just leave.”  


Charles forces a thin smile, knowing that everything he earns this way is short-lived, that approval that must be bought is temporary. “You would not have stood for learning I had kept him from you.”  


Hawkeye laughs, and his hand slides cautiously down, warm fingers threading through Charles’ as he says, “Well, he’s not the only one I’m glad to see.” It’s just a quick squeeze, before Hawkeye turns to bound up the stairs after John, but Charles stands in the dirt staring down at his hand, feeling very much like a lovelorn Austen hero. He wonders if there is a convenient moor to wander through as he ponders his feelings. Preferably a misty one. “Are you coming?” Pierce’s bright smile is leveled at _him_ , not at McIntyre, and it does strange things to him to realize it.  


“Ah- yes,”  


“You’re gonna love Dad,”  


Charles tries to smile back as he holds the door, then follows Pierce through it.  



	3. Things Present: Part Two

Daniel Pierce is an instant explanation of his son. As soon as he hears Charles’ accent he’s taken him by the hand, shaking exuberantly for a man of his years. “You’re Charles, huh?”  


“Is it that obvious?” He smirks, close-mouthed.  


“Only to someone who’s been on the party line,” Daniel winks.  


Hawkeye groans. “Dad, you were supposed to stop listening to my calls when I turned eighteen.”  


“Oh, I stopped, I stopped. Then I started again. You’re a lot more interesting now than you were back then.” Daniel steps back and looks Winchester up and down. “You don’t look like a man who’s been in many kitchens, but I just started dinner- think I could teach you to wash a vegetable?”  


Charles ducks his head, hands in his pockets, and smiles. “I actually am a rather proficient cook.”  


“How come you never mentioned?” Daniel is looking at his son. “Makin’ your old man look like a fool in front of company,”  


Hawkeye shakes his head, smiling, hands up in self-defense. “I didn’t know! The way he bitched and moaned about working in the kitchens on Boxing Day,”  


“That was _manual labor,_ Pierce, not cooking. I resent being ordered about with the simple goal of concocting gruel.”  


Trapper is loud when he steps in. “ _I_ don’ mind a little manual labor, Dr. Pierce,” he grins, something tense in the expression. “Point me to the vegetables.”  


“Sure you’re in good shape to be cooking? Nasty scratch like that, you’re not about to drip on the vegetables and call it sauce, are you?”  


Charles clears his throat, feeling his cheeks turn pink. McIntyre looks sideways at him. “Blame Dr. Gruel. He was all for manual labor when it was givin’ me this,”  


“ _You_ would not let go of the wheel. Nearly pulled us off the road. And your repayment was more than sufficient.” He gestures to his face, where he can feel a bruise blooming.  


McIntyre ignores the last. “You were goin’ the slow way.”  


Charles makes an exaggerated show of checking his watch. “Three hours and roughly fifteen minutes. Give or take some for wandering this… rustic town, and I should say our time was more than satisfactory.”  


Hawkeye whistles. “Three hours fifteen? You must have been driving like it was a jeep.”  


“I would _never_ put my Bentley through _that_.” Charles shudders.  


“You’re gonna have to take me for a ride. Never been in a Bentley.”  


Charles snorts, looking down his nose fondly. “You don’t know anything about cars, Pierce,”  


“I know Bentleys are more than cars, _Winchester_. When are you gonna call me by my name, huh?”  


“Perhaps when Hell has frozen.” He is teasing, smiling, unreasonably pleased by the Bentley comment- he really will take Pierce for a ride in it, if he’d like, if he’d just sit still beside Charles and smile at him and perhaps, at a stoplight, lean a little closer-  


“I’ll call downstairs, see if they can’t get a move on.” Hawkeye laughs. “C’mon, let me give you the tour,”  


The tour is a vague gesture down the hall- a guest bedroom proper and a loft in the garage, which used to serve for cousins but now exists mostly for storage. “My room, an’ dad’s room, guest bathroom.” Hawkeye points. “Backyard’s nicest. I think we have a few more summer nights around the fire yet. Maybe tonight,” he smiles back at the two of them. “Can’t believe you’re here,” he leads them toward the back door.  


“So, Hawk, what- what’re you doing? These days?”  


Charles snorts. “Very suave, McIntyre,”  


“Can it,”  


“‘Can it’ _please_ ,” Charles rolls his eyes, holding the door for Ben. “You might at least have some manners in your rudeness.”  


McIntyre rolls his eyes back, following Hawkeye into the yard. “This and that. Getting used to being back, helping dad around the house and at the clinic.”  


“Get good fishin’ around here?”  


“ _Fishing_?” Charles can’t believe his ears, rounding on McIntyre. “You pathetic low-life,” he puts his hand in the center of McIntyre’s chest and pushes, taking advantage of John’s surprise. “Your best apology is a discussion of _fishing_?” His voice can probably be heard two or three houses around- and the houses are not close to one another. “We are in Maine, you complete cretin, _all they do_ is fish for lobster,”  


“Charles,” Hawkeye’s hand is on his chest. “Calm down. It’s fine.”  


He looks down, outraged. “ _Pierce_ ,” His gaze jumps between Pierce and McIntyre. “ _You_ may allow yourself to be treated so cavalierly, but _I_ will not stand for it,”  


“I said it’s _fine_ , Charles, leave it alone- I don’t need anybody riding in to play white knight for me, alright? I’m a strong independent woman- took a Cosmo quiz that said so.” He’s grinning. “Look, give us a minute, okay? Isn’t- does Honoria know where you are?”  


“Ah- no, but,” he’s preparing to bluster, but Pierce cuts him off.  


“Go call her.” Hawkeye’s hand moves to his bicep, squeezes softly, and pushes him in the direction of the house.  


Daniel is watching through a back window. “It’s like that, huh?”  


Charles wants to deny it, though he’s not precisely sure what _it_ is. Between Trapper and Hawkeye? Between him and Trapper, _about_ Hawkeye? “I, ah, was instructed to ‘give them a minute.’ May I use your telephone to let my sister know I am among friends? I will reverse the charges, of course,”  


“Telephone’s in the hallway, help yourself,” Daniel is smiling, giving him an odd look. He wishes he understood, and at the same time is somewhat afraid to.  


The hallway has bright wooden floors that do not match the main house- an addition, Charles assumes, staring at Ben’s closed bedroom door. He is suddenly overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is standing in Hawkeye’s _house_ , where he grew up, with his dad. The place he wanted to return to, more than anything. Memories are thick around him, almost visible in the shadows of twilight.  


He picks up the phone and dials, waiting while it rings. Honoria answers- Charles rolls his eyes. “Let the servants do _something_ , Honoria,”  


“ _Charles_. Where a-are you?”  


He tries to keep his voice even, hears it drop low anyway. “Crabapple Cove.”  


His sister laughs. “ _Finally_ ,”  


“Nori. I… brought him Trapper John. Ah- his friend, who,”  


“I r-remember,” She sighs. “Charles… why c-couldn’t you j-just _go_?”  


He covers his eyes with one hand, taking a deep breath. “You know very well.” He can’t help the tension, snapping. They’ve had this conversation, Honoria urging him to go empty-handed, offer only _himself_ and hope- but Charles is not so naive nor so optimistic as his baby sister. “In any case, I am here now. And I wanted to inform you. Additionally… John McIntyre’s wife ought to know where her husband is. I thought you might… care to do the honors.”  


Honoria is quiet for a long second. “You w-want m-me to call Louise?”  


“If you like. Otherwise I am quite certain we could reach her from this number.”  


“N-no, I’ll d-do it,”  


Charles smirks, his free hand in his pocket as he glances toward the living room, the back door. “Very well, Nori, do be responsible,”  


“ _You_ b-be _ir_ responsible. And we’ll see about m-me,”  


Sighing, Charles says, “Goodbye Honoria. I shall see you tomorrow. If you wouldn’t mind a call to the hospital as well, to let them know that I shall return late afternoon,”  


“Of c-course. Couldn’t you _stay_? Spend the w-weekend?”  


“Good _bye_ , Honoria,”  


He replaces the phone carefully in the cradle and returns to stand aimlessly before Daniel Pierce. “Sister fine?” The doctor looks up nonchalantly at him.  


Charles nods. “Ah, yes. Relieved to know I had not simply disappeared to parts unknown.”  


Daniel chuckles. “We’re pretty far off your beaten path. She knows about Hawkeye, then?”  


“Of course,” Charles looks down, surprised.  


“Good to hear that you talk about him.” Daniel smiles. Charles thinks, _I do, far too often_. “Sometimes I wondered how he’d be, coming home. Lost my brother in the second world war, you know, and after that… nobody was quite the same, even if we didn’t go. Vision problems, me. Coke bottle glasses keep you home… wish I’d passed that on to him,”  


Charles looks out the back window. He can’t see Pierce and McIntyre, and that fact chokes him for a moment. He shoves his hands in his pockets, clears his throat. “I… wish that you had. And I am… sorry, about your brother. It… losing a sibling…”  


Daniel looks speculatively up at him. “Yeah. Well, at least I got Ben back. If not quite the way he left.”  


“I imagine not. What was he- is he-”  


“You probably talk to him about it more than I do. With me… I think he just wants to forget. Or protect me from seeing whatever it is makes him scream at night.”  


Charles flinches. “I- I would not wish the horrors we have borne witness to on anyone. If my phone calls- that is,” _do you think I remind him of the war? Can he have the tolerable parts as well as the horrifying?_ “Do you think I... help?”  


With a smile that tells him Daniel thinks he’s an idiot, Hawkeye’s dad says, “more than anything else seems to.”  


“Oh,” he ducks his chin, pleased. “Is there more I can do?”  


“You ought to ask him.”  


Charles sighs, stares out the window. _If he ever looks back to me, now that he’s been reunited with McIntyre._ “Perhaps.”  


“Help me with dinner?”  


“Gladly.” Charles follows him to the kitchen, allows himself to be used to reach the highest shelves, diligently assembles ingredients on the counter.  


Daniel surveys the spread. “Okay. I’m going to teach you to make the only thing I know how to make that isn’t a breakfast food.”  


Doubtful that he is about to learn anything he does not already know, Charles waits.  


With a proud smile, Daniel says, “pumpkin gnocchi.”  


“Pardon?”  


“Exactly. Pierce family recipe. Come on, hand me that bowl, I’ll show you how to do it. One of Ben’s favorites.”  


Well, if there’s a faster way to convince him to learn to cook Italian food, he doesn’t know it. He hands over the bowl, listens closely as Daniel begins giving him instructions, hanging his jacket over the back of one of the chairs in the dining room and rolling up his sleeves to help. He’s careful with the strange dough, trying to pay attention to memorizing the texture and give of it so he can replicate it. Tries to keep his mind away from whatever is happening in the backyard.  


“Where’d you learn to cook?” Daniel asks him, watching him shape the dough.  


“I taught myself. When Honoria was a little girl,” Charles smiles fondly down as he works, hearing his own voice soften. “She was a very fussy eater. The cook didn’t always account for it. I would make her midnight snacks. Eventually I became rather good at it.”  


Something in the way Daniel Pierce looks at him is _too_ much like his son, that clear blue x-ray gaze a little unnerving through his glasses. “How much older than her are you, again?”  


“Ten years,” Charles answers. “Though of late it feels like more. In my absence she rather… ran wild.” His lips purse; it concerns him. More than anything, he wants her to be happy- and wearing her hair like a Gibson girl and arriving at society functions in trousers may bring happiness in the short term, but the long term… remained to be seen. “And she’s long since stopped having birthdays, anyway.”  


Daniel laughs at that. “Bet she gets a party every year anyway. You seem like the type.”  


“To throw my sister birthday parties?”  


“Sure,” Daniel grins, leaning on the counter. “Let that rest now, start some water boiling. Big pots are under the oven.”  


Charles bends to open the cabinet. “Your organization is atrocious. If you’d like your kitchen arranged logically, call on me at any hour. Simply to spare myself this haphazard-” the back door opens, and he nearly drops the pot he’s holding.  


“Heya, dad, mind if we-” Hawkeye is looking at him, smile spreading. “Are you really cooking?”  


Charles straightens, holds his shoulders back. “I told you I could,” he sniffs. “What I am doing more of is attempting to convince your father to allow some semblance of order into this kitchen.”  


“Good luck,” Hawkeye grins. “Office is like this too. ‘S a wonder we find the scalpels- or the patients, some days,” he shakes his head. “I was gonna ask, dad- mind if Trap and me run down to the store? Pick up some beers?”  


Daniel doesn’t look at Charles as he shrugs and says, “gonna pass up a ride in that Bentley? I can keep John company if you want to ride in style. Make the neighbors jealous,”  


Hawkeye laughs. “Make the neighbors think we’ve finally found somebody willing to accept my dowry of sheep, huh?”  


“Do you _have_ sheep?” Charles asks, washing his hands of the dough; not wasting a second he could be alone with Pierce. “McIntyre was quite obsessed with the local farm animals as we drove; you might introduce him.”  


Laughing, Daniel shakes his head. “No sheep, I’m afraid. Us poor country doctors have lost the dowry tradition. Probably have a nice wool scarf or two, but that’s as close as we get.”  


_I would pay handsomely in any currency for your son’s hand,_ Charles thinks, and shakes himself. He had no sheep to give- nor any wool over his eyes. If the match had had hope, it had burnt out.  


Noticing Hawkeye’s eyes on him, he tugs his shirtsleeves down, fastening his cuffs. “Ah- if you would like to ride in the Bentley, I will gladly drive you. I shall need directions.”  


“I’m a good navigator,”  


“Then, after you.”  


“Jacket?” Hawkeye pauses with his hand on the door.  


Charles looks back. He doesn’t want McIntyre following them, and the cleaner the escape the better. “I doubt I’m likely to need it. Unless of course the corner store is black tie,”  


That makes Pierce laugh, and Charles smiles as he holds open the passenger door. “No, you’ll do just fine. Probably be about the best-dressed the town’s ever seen.” Pierce runs his hand over the upholstery, and Charles watches the movement. “This is a _nice_ car. Love the paint job.”  


”Thank you. It was custom.” Deep blue is not a common color for cars, but it offsets the dark grey of the body of the car strikingly. Looking over his shoulder as he pulls out of the driveway, Charles says, “I apologize for arriving unannounced. I rather had to corral McIntyre.”  


Hawkeye reaches over to touch his wrist. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you’re here. And thanks again for bringing him. Surreal to see him.” He shakes his head. “You know, it makes sense, the whole… letter marked ‘D’ thing. But try telling that to my memory.”  


“How do you mean?”  


“Oh, you know. Spent a war missing him, thinking he’d just… left… and now here he’s glad to see me _alive_.”  


Charles lets go of the wheel with one hand to rest it gently on Hawkeye’s knee, just for a moment. “As am I. I believe… your memory will adjust. As you said, it makes sense. And perhaps it was unwise of me to surprise you.”  


“Hey, I love surprises. Do it as often as you want.”  


They reach the end of the road. “Which way?” Charles asks.  


“Left here,” Hawkeye points, and Charles turns. He’s opening his mouth to say something about Daniel’s kindness and his disorderly kitchen when they pass a pedestrian and Hawkeye says, “Oh, hey, stop for a second, huh? That’s George,”  


Obediently, Charles brakes. He’s heard all about George and his lumbago.  


“Heya, George,” Hawkeye leans over Charles, hand on his leg for balance as he talks out the driver’s side window. “How’s your back?”  


“Getting better, getting better- but you know, just the other day, I was working in the garden and it started acting up, I may make an appointment with your father,”  


“Come on by tomorrow, my schedule’s free after two, I’ll see what I can do.” Ben’s easy smile almost distracts Charles from the way that his whole body is vibrating like a tuning fork pitched to the hand Hawkeye has on his thigh. “This is Charles, by the way, George. Up from Boston by way of Korea.”  


Charles flinches. “I wish you wouldn’t be so flippant.” He mutters to Hawkeye, reaching out the window to shake hands. “Pleased to meet you,”  


“You, too! Heard a lot about you. Last time I was by Dr. Pierce’s office, he was talking about sending his boy off to Boston for a weekend- that where you two are headed?”  


Flushing hot, Charles shakes his head. “Ah, no- just the grocery store.”  


“Maybe next weekend, huh?” George smiles. “Well, I’d best be getting home; Gracie’ll say hello, I’m sure,”  


“Tell her hello back,” Hawk waves, leaning back.  


Charles rolls his window up, but doesn’t take his foot off the brake. “Come to Boston for the weekend?”  


“I wasn’t gonna ask you, I know you’re busy. Just an idea of dad’s. He likes that I have friends who understand, you know. That. But I wouldn’t impose,”  


“It… would hardly be an imposition. Honoria and I have our own house, now, and if you’d ever care to visit… there are plenty of guest bedrooms.” Waking up to Hawkeye again, stubble on his jaw, but both of them _safe_ this time, the world turning on its axis more or less as it’s meant to… the draw of that idea catches at him. “And she would love to meet you.”  


Hawkeye smiles at him, slow and bright. “Well, then, next time you call me do it with your calendar in your hand.”  


“I will,” Charles smiles back, wishes to reach out and brush Pierce’s hair away from his face. “Ah- the store,”  


“Sure. Straight on, right at the light.”  


“Ah, you _do_ have traffic lights. Perhaps there is hope for this place yet.”  


Snorting, Hawkeye says, “Well excuse us for not having traffic backed out the city for an hour. Guess I like being able to actually drive when I get in the car,”  


Boston’s roads are akin to the Minotaur’s labyrinth, to the uninitiated, but Charles won’t admit that. “Actually drive _what_? Your bicycle?”  


“The VW runs, it just doesn’t _look_ like it does,” Pierce grins at him. “But now that you mention it… how fast does this thing go?” He’s running his hands over the seat, the door, and Charles is briefly blindingly envious of his Bentley.  


“Fast enough,” he says. “Why do you ask?”  


Pierce smiles at him. “There’s a road nobody ever drives- dad took me out there to practice, when I was learning. You can really get going on it.”  


Charles lets his mouth turn up in an answering smile. “And which way is this road?”  


“Right at the light, then right at the first street, then about ten minutes out.”  


“Very well,” Charles drives, Hawkeye nearly bouncing beside him, catching him up on the few days of Crabapple Cove doings that he missed, .  


“Here we go- never done this in anything that goes fast before,” Pierce is leaning forward in the seat, eager.  


With a smile, Winchester revvs the engine, making Hawk jump and laugh. “Oh your marks,” Pierce says, and before he can count down Charles is accelerating, fighting the shifter, watching Hawkeye out the corner of his eye as the former head surgeon leans his head out the window, whooping. The road is slightly hilly, a bit winding, and trees lean close on either side. Charles handles the Bentley smoothly around a corner, takes a hill too fast just to hear Hawkeye laugh breathlessly as he lifts out of his seat as gravity and the car battle. Seeing a stop sign, Winchester slows, downshifting and easing up to the line.  


“Acceptable?” He says, feeling his mouth turn up in a smile, turning to look at Pierce, whose eyes are bright as he grins.  


Reaching out, he gives Winchester a playful shove. “‘Acceptable?’ Charles, that was the most fun I’ve had since before I went to war, this thing can _go_. And you drive like a jockey.”  


“Must be the polo,” Charles feels his face soften into the admiringly besotted expression he tries to hide, wishing to trace the tips of his fingers over his friend’s pleased grin. Hear his name from those smiling lips again. “Shall we come about and do it once more?”  


“Yes, yes, please,” Hawkeye leans out the window again as Charles makes a turn, revvs the engine.  


He reaches over to tug Hawkeye back into his seat. “Be careful, Pierce, I won’t explain to your father that you fell out the window of my car.”  


“Caahh,” Hawk mocks him lightly, tugging at the wrist of the hand on his shirt. “More like you don’t wanna tell anyone that you did something _fun_ ,”  


This time, Charles thinks, he’ll take the car as close to its top speed as he can get it, pressing the clutch and shifting as he gives the engine gas. Jerked back into the seat by the sudden motion, Hawkeye laughs, letting himself be rocked back and forth by centrifugal force as Charles pushes the Bentley faster and faster, taking corners tightly. Hawkeye whoops when they go over a hill at sixty, and Charles is grateful that the car is heavy as it comes back to earth, center of gravity low enough for the next turn to pose no risk. The way it feels, while the car is in the air- Hawkeye beside him, smiling and laughing delightedly- he wants to live in that moment. He can imagine only one other thing that might feel that way, hands clinging together and brushing over hips, up backs, chests pressing together, the warmth of Hawkeye against him mouth to thighs, in his arms- The road they had come from had been empty, before, but as he draws up on it he slows cautiously, downshifting again to turn onto it at the very reasonable speed of a man who has absolutely not just been showing off, nor thinking that kissing the man beside him must feel like flying.  


Hawkeye is grinning madly as the car slows and reaches for his wrist, tugging at the cuff of his shirt. “How come I never knew you could drive like that?”  


“Thankfully, you were never in the jeep with me when the situation called for it.” _Or the ambulance, that once._ “However, I should be quite glad to demonstrate any time. Perhaps we could go for a drive, someday.” He tries to keep his voice steady, not allow it to soften, as he reaches out, hoping. “A proper one, down the coast. I’m certain there are a great many backroads that could be experienced at speed. I’ve been considering the purchase of a Ferrari- this year’s Berlinetta is quite a performance machine.”  


Laughing, Hawkeye meets his eyes. “A Berlinetta, huh? Those are for racing, right- I’d like that drive, if you promise we’ll have crash helmets,” Hawkeye squeezes his wrist and lets go; Charles misses the contact immediately. “Oh, turn here, store’s that way,” he points.  


“Speaking of the store, Pierce- I had thought that you were not drinking,”  


With a shrug, the man beside him says, “Yeah, not really. Trying to give my liver a break- I might’ve aged ten years in three, but I gave it an easy hundred.”  


They’ve talked about this, on the phone. Charles knows he wants to drink most when the memories are pressing in, stifling him- it’s the same with Pierce. “If… we’ve roused difficult memories, Pierce, I can take McIntyre and-”  


“No! No, no. I- I want you to stay. It’s more that Trap brought it up, and dad and I don’t really keep anything around the house, right now, so- look at me, being a good hostess. That Cosmo quiz was right.” He chuckles. “Turn here- on your left.”  


Charles pulls into the lot and turns off the engine. “Don’t… social drinking is one thing, Pierce,”  


“Spare me the temperance lecture,” Pierce rolls his eyes. “Prohibition’s over, and I can’t take it seriously coming from you anyway, Mr. Lampshade.”  


”You needn’t remind me, but allow me to remind _you_ that I rarely drank that way before the war, and haven’t since our return.” His hands flex on the wheel. “Besides which, I… worry.”  


That gets him attention. Pierce turns to look at him, hand still on the door handle. His light eyes move over Charles’ face, eyebrows raising. Charles just looks back at him, holding his breath. It feels like a tremendous risk to have taken. “Well. Maybe we’ll get some beers for Trap and Dad and you and me can stick to club soda. Okay?”  


“Yes.”  


The store is quick, relatively painless. Hawkeye asks about Honoria, Boston, and Charles has already told him of his first little triumph, making it through a symphony with his sister beside him, so he shares the details of the hospital and repeats some society gossip. It makes Ben laugh, to hear the escapades Honoria has been conducting- and occasionally dragging her brother into.  


When they arrive back at the house, Daniel is just finishing the main dish, Trapper watching awkwardly. “I wrote down the steps for you,” Dr. Pierce the elder says by way of greeting, nodding at a piece of paper. “You’ll have to practice. Let me know if your sister likes it.”  


Charles pockets the paper as Hawkeye sets down the beer. “I will. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.” _If nothing else she will enjoy the story._  


“Good. Then go wash your hands- food’s ready.”  


In the moments he’s gone, he hears McIntyre’s laugh crack through the house, followed by Pierce’s shrieking mirth. The faint euphoria of the drive evaporates instantaneously, and he gives himself a hard, resigned look in the bathroom mirror. Having successfully come through a war without humiliating himself in this, one more night ought to have been a small ask; but it seems insurmountable in the face of being in the Pierce household, peaceful and comfortable- or it would be so, without McIntyre. McIntyre who is sprawled in a seat at the dining room table holding a beer, joking with Pierce.  


Charles has surprised himself with the depth of his hatred before, but this is not one of those times. True, something is screaming in his chest, clawing to get out, but he’s well-practiced in the art of wearing a neutral expression like armor. The skill had failed him often enough in Korea, but upon his return- it was invaluable in society, where the slings and arrows were far less outrageous and taking arms against them was more a question of chess than outright conflict. The sound and the fury in his chest is directed inward, he thinks, more than it is at McIntyre. Oh, he hates the blond, without question; but he knows it isn’t McIntyre’s fault that he is afraid, that he was always afraid.  


“Hey, Winchester, think fast,” McIntyre has thrown something; Charles’ hand flicks up as though the object is a ball and he holds a polo stick.  


He looks at it. “Why have you thrown preserved legumes at me?”  


McIntyre rolls his eyes; Hawekeye is smiling down at the cutlery drawer. “They’re _baked beans_ , idiot. Thought you might be more at home.”  


“ _How_ thoughtful of you to care for my comfort.” He is sorely tempted to hurl the jar back at the blond, but doesn’t want McIntyre to dodge and the beans to damage Daniel’s walls. He comes closer, sets the jar on the counter. “I apologize for the- ah, food fight.”  


Hawkeye laughs. “One can- that’s nothin. Next summer we’ll do what dad and I used to, have dinner outside and start a food fight we needed the garden hose to get cleaned up from,”  


“That sounds suspiciously like Margaret’s idea of a shower,”  


“You can’t play French Horn. I don’t care how good a surgeon you are, best and brightest, got a thousand plays rattling around upstairs, thinking all the world’s a stage doesn’t make it a concert hall or you a musician.”  


Charles rolls his eyes, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. “Ah, so you admit I am the best and brightest in surgery,”  


“ _No_ ,” Hawkeye shoves at him. “Here, go put this on the table,” he hands over a bowl of salad.  


“You’re no longer Head Surgeon, you cannot give me orders and expect them followed,”  


“You’re doing exactly what I told you to,” Hawkeye points out.  


Charles huffs. “What else is there to do with a bowl of salad? I am only being logical.”  


“Doing it because you want to not because I told you to, huh?”  


“Something like that. You’ve added far too many tomatoes,”  


“No such thing in a salad, besides, they’re from the garden,”  


Trapper breaks in, “I love tomatoes,”  


“No one asked your opinion, McIntyre, I shouldn’t be surprised to learn you share a palate with those cows you were so entranced by.”  


“Moo-ve over, Charles,” Hawkeye’s hand is at the small of his back. “I’m trying to set the table,”  


McIntyre laughs, and Charles rolls his eyes, distracted by the fact that Hawkeye hasn’t moved his hand. In fact, his thumb is brushing Charles’ hip, and the motion of it seems to be disconnecting the mental pathways he usually uses for conversation. Which is probably entirely the point. Perhaps he ought to stop mocking McIntyre- if Pierce likes him, he can’t be completely beyond redemption. Whatever Charles’ personal feelings would suggest to the contrary.  


“Here we go,” Daniel sets a large bowl of gnocchi in the center of the table, taking the seat beside McIntyre. “All set.”  


They sit, Hawkeye across from McIntyre, Charles across from Daniel, who waves a hand in a casual go-ahead motion. “So- you’re from Boston? What’s it like these days?”  


“Boston is marvelous,” he begins, and McIntyre cuts him off with a snort.  


“Things I could tell yah about that place- make your hair curl,”  


“It already is,” Charles quips back, running his fingers through his own hair, where it curls over his ear.  


“What’s left of it,” Hawkeye reaches over, and Charles understands now how their childhood cat had felt when Honoria put leaves on its head- what does one do, other than sit still and wait? He feels his own eyes widen. He imagines he looks just like Sir Meowdred (he never let Honoria name anything again after she forced him to refer to a cat with an honorific). “One time BJ and I painted a pool ball in the deforested zone. Slept right through it, didn’t you,” his hand is still on Charles’ head, just sitting there, as his face splits into his familiar manic grin.  


Reaching up to remove Pierce’s hand, plucking at his sleeve and returning it to its owner’s side, Charles says, “The paint took absolute ages to wash off.”  


McIntyre laughs. “I wanna meet this BJ guy sometime,” He shoots a speculative look at Winchester, assessing. Charles feels as though he’s a joint being cased for robbery. “I never knew anybody else brave enough to prank you.”  


“ _You_ were only brave enough to steal my parking space.” Charles says, arch, one eyebrow raising. “Hunnicutt certainly outpaces you in that regard.”  


“You stole his parking space?” Hawkeye is laughing. “Before the war?”  


McIntyre starts to answer, but Charles interrupts, hating Hawkeye’s admiring tone enough to say, “That’s nothing. You were there when Hunnicutt stole my _trousers_ ,”  


“A true American hero,” Hawk laughs, and Charles glances at Daniel- who’s laughing too. _A dad, not a father. Perhaps dads can be trusted with… truer knowing._ “But we got him back. Do you still have those pictures? His _face_ coming out of the nurses’ tent,” he slaps the table, laughing into his dinner.  


Charles smiles, wishes to touch him, the way he could at the mess table- just brushing their knees together, or catching his pinky on Hawkeye’s sleeve. “I do, as a matter of fact,” he puts his hand inside his jacket, draws out his wallet- “Here you are,”  


“You keep it in your wallet?”  


“In my defense, it is not the only one. And I had intended to send it to you, but with the post’s tendency to lose our letters,”  


“You know you can trust it now that we’re back. Mostly.”  


Charles shrugs. Seeing Pierce smile at the photo was better than getting a thank-you note back, miles better any day. “I have others,” he draws them out, passing them over. “Margaret gave me that one,” he taps it, a photo of a drunken night at the officer’s club, BJ’s head tipped back as he laughs at whatever had Pierce and Winchester arguing, bent over the table- tiny between the three surgeons. “I cannot recall what the subject of our argument was,”  


“Rural hospitals versus city hospitals,” Hawkeye says immediately. “You got this look in your eyes, I’ll never forget-” he blinks and changes gear. “Remember, BJ told us we were being statistically irresponsible,”  


Charles snaps his fingers. “Because we were only using two data points, yes, Massachusetts General and your practice.”  


“He wrote another article, after that, do you remember?”  


“Of course I recall, Pierce, he only credited us with our last names!”  


“Was that the week you put dye in the still and told him the mess had got cranberry juice,”  


“No, no, _that_ was in repayment for his prank with the duck,”  


“Oh yeah, Charles Swimchester, long may he reign,”  


“Once again, that is _not_ what a la King means,” he can’t bring himself to add ‘and it’s usually made with chicken,’ but it doesn’t matter anyway because Hawkeye is laughing, leaning into his side with one hand on his thigh, and it feels like he’s human, really human, warmth radiating through him, and he wants _so badly_ to wrap his arm around the other surgeon and hold him there so he can kiss that dark hair, threaded through with more silver than it ought to be.  


McIntyre laughs, uncomfortably loud. “What are y’talking about, Hawk?”  


Waving his hand as he sits upright, Hawkeye grins. “It’s not- it’s not important. There was this duck,” and he falls back into his cackling laughter, and Charles winces at the sound, smiling to himself because he missed it.  


The gnocchi, Charles is forced to admit, isn’t half bad. It’s a relief to watch Pierce eat without sniffing every bite, and he resolves to ask someday what it was about army food. Besides the obvious, of course.  


McIntyre starts to talk football with Daniel, and Hawkeye is listening, but Charles never cared for the sport and certainly never followed it after his Harvard days in the stands. He tries to keep his eyes on his food, but fails completely, casting glances at Ben beside him just to reassure himself that they’re there, safe, sitting beside one another without the risk of incoming wounded or a blackout or blizzard conditions.  


His fist clenches on his fork when he realizes that Hawkeye looks to be playing footsies with McIntyre, judging by the way they both keep jolting and laughing, the giddy energy between them making Charles wish he’d never done this. He wonders how Daniel feels, to see the two Boston doctors clearly vying for his son’s attention. Is he proud of the man he’s raised, a man who inspires love wherever he turns? He ought to be.  


“Charles,” Daniel turns away from McIntyre. “I haven’t heard nearly enough of the good from Ben. Tell me, what was he like? When you met.”  


Clearing his throat to cover a pause as his mind races to shut down his more poetic sentiments, Winchester answers, “He was something of the camp Icarus.”  


Daniel casts a sidelong look at his son. “Sounds about right. Hope someone was there to fix up his wings every time.”  


Charles feels his cheeks stain pink as he looks down. _It should have been me, I was afraid, I’m sorry- I wish it had been me._ “BJ Hunnicutt would make a phenomenal avian repairman, should he ever decide to change careers,”  


Daniel chuckles. Hawkeye gives Charles a strange look- McIntyre is glaring into his salad. “You know,” Dr. Pierce senior points his fork at Dr. Pierce junior. “He used to make wings out of all kinds of things, jump off the back porch, the roof of the car- we had an agreement about the roof of the house, but when he was eleven he decided the garage roof wasn’t the same as the house roof- well, lucky his old man’s a doctor,”  


Heart twisting with love he can’t express, Charles looks at the man beside him. “I’ve always suspected that you should _never_ be left without supervision,”  


Hawkeye laughs. “You gonna supervise me?”  


“ _That_ would be a full-time job,”  


Daniel laughs. “It is,” he agrees, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Take it from me. What’s your _actual_ job? Thoracics, right?”  


Charles dips his head. “Ah, yes, though the war rather interrupted my career plans… I am considering a return to pediatrics.”  


“Harvard doctor with _two_ specialties?” Daniel whistles. “No wonder getting demoted to Korea pissed you off. Did you know he had two specialties?” He’s looking at his son again.  


Hawkeye nods. “Sure I did, he hardly shut up about it. ‘Specially every time one of the village kids would come by, or this time we- well, it’s not a nice story, but one morning BJ and me wake up to find Charles holding a baby, and things sorta went downhill from there.” His fingertips brush Charles’ knee, under the table, making him jump.  


“Someone had left her beside our tent,” Charles clarifies, glancing at Hawkeye in confusion- _’half in anguish, half in hope.’_ “I did not acquire a child at random.”  


“You must like kids, though. Run in the family?”  


Nearly choking at the idea of his parents liking children, Charles laughs uncomfortably. “Not as such, no.” He doesn’t want to elaborate, in front of McIntyre.  


Daniel saves him the trouble. “Hawkeye says you started a project for the kids the army wanted to leave in Korea. Working with the Red Cross, that right?”  


“That was intended to be in confidence, Pierce, it’s something of a scandal.” Charles casts an annoyed look at the man beside him and is stunned to see something like pride in his eyes.  


“It’s a scandal to take care of kids?” McIntyre shakes his head, stabbing at his food with his fork held as indelicately as Charles had ever seen a utensil wielded. “Your world’s fucked up,”  


_I have become acutely aware._ “That is no call for language of that sort, McIntyre.”  


Daniel grins at him across the table. “If you ever need a hand, let me know. It’s been too long since I saw more kids than adults. Town’s gettin’ old.”  


Hawkeye rolls his eyes. “You’re exaggerating, dad, town’s gettin’ old but the people are still having kids- we just don’t see as many. Real pediatrician moves to town, that’s what happens.”  


“People stop bringing their kids to the old country doctor, I know,” Daniel sighs amiably. “Well, offer stands, Charles, if you want a hand I’m game for a trip to the city every now and then.”  


Touched by the unfailing kindness of the Pierce family, Charles inclines his head. “Thank you. Fortunately, all of the children are in good health at the moment, but the next time we do physicals I shall let you know.”  


“Good. Honoria help with that project?”  


He hears the careful pronunciation of his sister’s name, is grateful that Hawkeye has remembered how to say it, how important she is to him. _Mostly she keeps the gossip columnists too busy to report on **my** doings._ “In a way, yes.”  


“Your parents must be proud.”  


Charles looks at his food, unwilling to lie to Daniel Pierce’s face. The salad in front of him doesn’t help- he wonders if Hawkeye recalls, as he does, the first conversation that turned to Charles’ parents, the way a bowl of leaves somehow has the power to make him nervous, want to race a clock that stopped counting down long ago. “They… don’t have much opinion.”  


“They don’t ask you about it when you come home?”  


_They hardly asked me about the **war** when I came home._ “Ah, it is just my sister and I, now. Our parents are none too pleased, but in this century… I feel adult children ought to be allowed some independence.” Not to mention that if Honoria kept attempting to sneak lovers in and out of their parents’ house by way of the bedroom window, someone was going to break a leg. Or a neck. _That_ would be far more a stain on the Winchester family honor than allowing their children to live away from the ancestral grounds. “We do still live in Beacon Hill, of course, but the rarity with which we accidentally encounter them is… rather freeing.”  


Trapper snorts. “Little old to live with your parents anyway, aren’t you?”  


Hawkeye visibly aims a kick at him under the table, smiling. “Watch it, buster, _I_ live with my parent,”  


McIntyre gestures between them. “Yeah, but he’s- what, ten years older’n you?”  


“Nah, he’s- wait- how old _are_ you?”  


“All those physicals and you never read my medical file? Astounding that you managed to find your way to OR every time.”  


Hawkeye snorts. “Maybe I’m getting senile. I thought I was older than you.” He ruffles his graying hair.  


“Five years,” Charles says. “Assuming you didn’t lie to the draft board about your age as well as your medical degree.”  


“You wanna see my medical degree? I’ll give you directions to the alma mater, involves a long walk and a short pier.” He grins as McIntyre laughs. “Am I really five years younger than you?”  


Charles shrugs. “If your medical record is to be believed. _I_ read my patients’ records, when performing a physical.”  


“Hey, I read yours, just always got stuck on ‘height: six-five. Blood: blue.’ How the hell do you live like that?”  


“Able to reach the top shelves, in every sense. It’s a difficult life but I suppose someone must shoulder the burdens.”  


“You have enough shoulders for it,” Hawkeye winks, and Charles gets the distinct impression that he is being _flirted_ with. Would that it were meant seriously. “Hang on, how tall is Nori? I’ve never seen pictures,”  


“Six one and a half,” Charles tells him smugly. “She attempts to wear shoes that make her taller than I- be prepared for that when you meet her.”  


Hawkeye laughs. “I’ll be ready to be looked down on in every sense of the word.”  


“You should bring her next time,” Daniel smiles. “I’d love to meet her.”  


Charles smiles. “My sister is… a force of nature. I shall attempt to bring her along.”  


“Well, you come on up anytime, alright?” Daniel Pierce is smiling, and so is Hawkeye, their twin expressions too much for Charles, who smiles thinly back.  


“I, ah, I will. Work permitting,”  


Hawk nods. “Work permitting.” He echoes. “Hey, that reminds me, I was gonna tell you in a letter but you’re here- you’ll never _believe_ who came in with what stuck where,”  


“Doctor-patient confidentiality ceases to apply when you wish to share juvenile stories, is that it?”  


Hawkeye rolls his eyes, opens his mouth- and McIntyre cuts in. “ _I’ll_ listen, Hawk, who?”  


“Well- well, I tell Charles, on the phone and, uh, in letters, about some of the folks I see now, in town. You don’t know ‘em, Trap,”  


“Was it Casey Keller,” Charles can’t help but guess- even if he’s wrong, it’s an attempt- he listens, he _does_ , and wants to remember, wants to make Hawkeye feel like he is valued.  


Ben’s face lights up. “It was,” he laughs, shouldering Charles. “Doctor-patient confidentiality goes out the window when you wanna hear the joke, huh?”  


“The number of times you have told me of Mr. Keller’s misadventures made it an easy deduction.”  


“Good for you, Sherlock,” McIntyre rolls his eyes. “Tell the story, Hawk,”  


Daniel clears his throat. “It’s not exactly table conversation, Ben, tell it later.”  


“Sorry, dad,” Hawk is smiling. “I will, Trap, I’ll come back to it.”  


They’re all quiet for a moment. Charles is searching for a topic of conversation, a question to ask that he doesn’t know the answer to, that he doesn’t mind asking in front of McIntyre- “So,” Daniel looks at him again, a mischievous smile on his face that looks _so_ like Hawkeye that Charles is momentarily floored by how much he wants to be there to see Hawk age into the look, compare him to his father- “I hear you liked my bird joke. Who told it better- Ben or BJ?”  


Charles looks at the man beside him. “I… couldn’t possibly comment. Both acquitted themselves admirably.”  


Daniel laughs, throwing his head back just like his son, though the sound he makes isn’t half as grating. “You _do_ have those fancy drawing room manners, huh?”  


“Bird joke?” Trapper looks around the table.  


Hawkeye’s face splits into a grin. “So, there’s a ringmaster, right?”  


“Sure,”  


“And he’s inspecting the big top one day, and this little guy comes in.” Pierce is standing as he speaks, animated. “And he says he wants to join the circus. So the ringmaster says okay, let’s see your act. And the little guy starts flapping his arms,” he imitates the gesture, climbing up on his chair. “He lifts right off the ground! And he goes around and around the tent,” the chair wobbles- Charles reaches out to steady it, looking up with a half-smile at the ridiculous man he’s even further in love with than he realized. “And he gets to the top and he comes back down, still flapping his arms like anything, okay, and he lands, next to the ringmaster, and he,” Hawkeye jumps down from the chair, hooking his thumbs in his jeans. “He says, well, what’d you think?” His smile is starting to crack into laughter. “And the- the ringmaster says, that’s all you do? Bird impressions?”  


Charles laughs. “As Hunnicutt is not here, I believe you’ve just taken the title,”  


McIntyre repeats, “Bird impressions?” His smile is crooked and boyish, and the way he is looking at Hawkeye makes Winchester want to reach across the table and break his nose. “Bird- bird impressions,” McIntyre laughs, and Hawkeye is smiling back now, and Charles wants to slip his fingers through Pierce’s belt loops, make him _stay_ \- but there is nothing he can do. There never has been. He’s hammering that fact home for himself with this trip- he is here on the grace of being the bearer of John McIntyre, and if he thought he was inadequate before a table in the OR with no earthly idea of how to move as fast and as well as the other three surgeons in the room- that was only practice for this moment. He folds his hands in his lap, short nails biting into his palms.  


“I win, huh?” Hawkeye’s hand is on his shoulder, using him for balance to sit back down.  


“You do. I’d say by default, but by this point I can’t imagine Hunnicutt recalling the joke nor telling it half so well as you.”  


Hawkeye grins. “Oh, good. I play to win.”  


“You play for the sake of _playing_.” _And I love that about you._  


“That too,”  


Daniel rises. “Here, John, help me with the dishes. You two, get some cards, let’s go to the front room.”  


“Oh, you two are in for it. _I_ cleaned you out, and dad taught _me_ ,” Hawkeye grins brightly, bounding out of his seat. Charles follows, but finds himself useless in the retrieval of playing cards, not knowing where they are, so he repairs to the front room. He hadn’t looked around it, earlier- it is furnished in the way one expects a room in a Balzac novel to be furnished; that is, every inch of it describes the men who live there. The sofa is worn and looks comfortable, a deep green that matches the lampshade and curtains, there’s a bookshelf with haphazard piles of well-worn novels and medical journals, the rug is a little worn but in a way that makes it look comfortable rather than shabby. He realizes that he’s never stood anywhere that feels more like a _home_ , looking around at the extra chairs kept presumably for company, the light dusting of ash on the brick fireplace hearth, the photographs that adorn the mantle.  


Charles draws closer, staring at the pictures. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but it’s clearly far too revealing judging by the answering expression it evokes when Ben joins him, hand on his shoulder. “My mom,” Ben points, gentle.  


“Lovely woman,” Charles says, at a loss. “You look very much like her.”  


Pierce smiles. “Thanks. Been a while since anybody called me a lovely woman.”  


“That is _not_ -”  


“I know.” He sways, bumping his shoulder into Charles’. “Remind me to tell you about her sometime, when we’re not havin’ a party.”  


Nodding, Charles answers, “I should like to hear the stories.”  


“I don’t remember too many, but dad tells some good ones. Next time you come up.” He brushes their shoulders again. “Will you tell me some about your parents, too?”  


“I- ah, I doubt they’d be of the same caliber.”  


Hawkeye’s hand wraps around his wrist. “I wanna hear ‘em anyway.”  


“Very well- next time.” _If there is one_.  


Hawkeye tugs at his wrist. “Come on. Before we play I wanna show you something.”  


Charles follows, into the backyard, shivering in the wind.  


“Bet it’s been a while since you saw the stars, huh? In Boston with all that light.”  


The stars come out in Boston, but not with the brightness he remembers from cold Korean nights, so he looks up in awe at the expanse of the sky above him, tipping his head back with his hands in his pockets. It looks endless. “What are you thinking?” Hawkeye’s voice is quiet, and Charles looks around to find Ben standing close, watching him.  


“Ah-” _’doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt thou the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.’_ “Of the- the… vastness of life. These are the same stars upon which Shakespeare looked, three hundred years ago.”  


“And the same we wished on in Korea, just a hundred years ago,”  


He can’t look away from Ben’s eyes, the way they’re soft and intent in the dark. “I suppose they are.”  


“Hey Hawk!” McIntyre’s voice calls from the back door. “We playin’ cards or what?”  


“Coming!” He turns away, glancing back over his shoulder. “You coming?”  


“Yes.”  



	4. Things Present: Part Three

Trapper concedes the guest bedroom without a fight, without a complaint about the loft- and Charles _knows_ it’s because he doesn’t expect to sleep there, expects to be in Hawkeye’s bedroom. And he very likely isn’t wrong. And Charles may well borrow Honoria’s teenage trick of climbing out a window and driving off, if he thinks about it for too long. He isn’t certain he could get his shoulders through the window of the guest bedroom, to say nothing of the rest of him, but by god if McIntyre’s laugh keeps echoing through the house he is going to _try_.  


He cleans his teeth, stares at himself in the bathroom mirror and wonders _what_ he is going to do with himself, with his heart- he supposes he will wake up to find it broken, and that’s the way of things, but it doesn’t make the foreknowledge any easier to bear. _Oh, Cassandra, I see your plight- my heart will not believe the things my mind knows._ It is indeed a curse, to know the outcome and yet be unable to alter the course of events.  


The laughter is quieted, and he’s steeling himself to see McIntyre when the door opens as he knocks at Hawkeye’s bedroom door. “Charles.” Pierce grins, alone as far as Winchester can tell. “Guessing you want pyjamas, huh?”  


“I, ah, didn’t exactly pack,” Charles ducks his chin, smiling abashedly.  


“Here, c’mere.” Charles walks in, trying not to look around- it’s not his to know, not his to hope for- “Here, it’s not that slutty red robe of yours, but,” Hawkeye laughs, tossing him a bathrobe.  


“ _Excuse me_?”  


Still laughing, his eyes are bright as he expands. “You know. The one you ‘got Honoria’ and then wore around for days?”  


“ _One_ day, and hardly _by choice_.” He corrects, sharply.  


“Ah, must’ve stretched it out in my mind. The time, not the robe. Robe’s perfect the way it was.” He grins, saucy. “Maybe I just _wanted_ to see you in it for longer,”  


There’s a little voice in his head that makes him draw up his shoulders, not sure if he’s trying to look bigger or smaller, reminding him that _this_ is why he ought to drive back to Boston _now_ and spare himself this absurd pretended flirtation, the pain of wishing it were real _so badly_ , coexisting with the fear of _what if it were_ -  


“Thinkin’ awful loud, Chuckles,”  


_I’ll write, even if he didn’t, I promise, you can have letters from Boston whenever you like. I wish I could write for him, send them back to you when you needed them. Please let me make up the dearth. I won’t be a disappointment, I swear._  


“Charles?”  


“Ah,” a deep breath, a straightening of his spine and his expression both. “Apologies,” He looks down at the robe in his hands. “Thank you.”  


Backing out of the room, he can’t look at Hawkeye, and he’s surprised to run into John in the hall. “Uh. Hi.” McIntyre is his usual fount of conversation. “Scrounging up jammies?” He nods at the robe.  


Charles rolls his eyes. “I suppose _you_ intend to sleep in the nude,” he says it archly, the pang of the idea too painful- the idea of the two of them standing outside of Hawkeye Pierce’s bedroom door, one hiding and one brazen.  


McIntyre gives him a look that can’t decide whether to be salacious or condescending. “‘F I were, wouldn’t be telling _you_ about it,”  


“I should _hope_ not. Class boundaries have not become so loose as _that_.”  


“Callin’ me an undesirable?” Trapper folds his arms, leaning on the wall, a challenging smile on his lips.  


Charles isn’t usually one to back down from repartee, but tonight he simply shrugs. “Something like that.”  


“If you’re gonna fight again at least let me get popcorn,” Hawkeye leans on the doorframe. “Gimme enough time to sell tickets.”  


McIntyre laughs, taking a step back. “Nah, I just came to see if you wanted to play a couple more hands of cards. I could use another beer, would love to talk with ya. Hear how you’ve been. For real.” He casts a cutting look at Charles, who understands that this is the moment to accept that he has laid himself low, put himself in the position of courier only. It is a difficult taste to swallow, but for Hawkeye- his teeth are grinding, but he tries to smile.  


“Good night, Pierce. Sleep well.” He means it, wishes for his friend to find rest free of the nightmares that haunt them both, even if it is in the arms of John McIntyre.  


He retires to his guest room and changes, shaking his head to himself because Pierce’s robe is tight on him, of course, and too short in the arms. Wearing it over his undershirt and boxers, he recalls the time with the newspapers and feels his cheeks turn pink even though he’s alone. He turns back the covers and wishes he had a book, but- needs must. He shuts out the light and gets in bed.  


Listening to their voices in the main room is like living in a haunted house- and he’s familiar with that feeling. Turning over, he tries to shut out their laughter, tries to sleep. Borrows Hunnicutt’s trick of folding the pillow over his ears, arms clasped around it. That works, for the sound, but it can’t shut out the feeling that’s overtopped his walls, slithering in like the first finger of floodwater. Being _jealous_ of John McIntyre is no feeling for a Winchester, but he’s gotten the smallest glimpses of what Hawkeye is like, as part of a pair, between watching him in Korea and the way he’d been treated at dinner, like a _friend_ \- he understands Icarus, now. The only thing to do when something was so bright was edge closer.  


_Fool._ He tells himself, surrounded in the borrowed robe by the smell of Hawkeye’s skin, his shampoo. _You knew what you were doing, bringing him McIntyre. A tribute to the sun, and you’ve gone and melted your wings. For what? For a smile? For his fingertips at your wrist?_ The word _unworthy_ echoes through his mind, from the hallowed halls of the Winchester household, the empty hallways and heavy lessons. The list of things he ought to be above, and the equally oppressive list of things he ought to want and simply doesn’t, less now than ever. Giving up, he rolls on his back, letting go of the pillow. The laughter is gone, now, but he can hear quiet voices. McIntyre’s pitches loud, now and then, but not enough for him to hear the words. He tries to be soothed, listening to them, better than listening to his thoughts. It doesn’t work, of course, a pain in his chest that would concern him if he weren’t a thoracic surgeon, a veteran, well-acquainted with the word ‘psychosomatic’. He listens to the voices and pretends it is the other students who shared his dormitory at Harvard, or perhaps a muted conversation overheard outside the tent at night in Korea. Something that concerned him not at all.  


He wishes dearly that he could put on music- but his ability to listen to opera is limited to opera halls, ballet scores only if he can see the dancers on stage, whole and free of the ravages of war. In any case, he hasn’t a phonograph, and even one of Honoria’s records wouldn’t be sufficiently bad to distract him. He starts humming something she sings around the house, her stutter lost in music, a love they share. He stops when he remembers the lyrics. All the songs Honoria sings are love songs. So Charles attempts to recite to himself, but the only thing he can think is _‘in fair Verona,’_ and civil blood has more than made their civil hands unclean. _‘All great Neptune’s ocean’_ between this place and that one, but he still sees the blood on his hands, knows that Pierce does too, wishes that he could help more than phone calls.  


Hawkeye’s laugh is loud and sudden, and Charles smiles to hear it- then frowns as it’s joined by McIntyre’s. Trying to sustain anger fails in the face of that fragile emotion that has leaked in, dripping saltwater on the flames. _At least he’s happy._ He thinks it, and remembers the way Hawkeye had leaned into his side with laughter at the dinner table, wanting that to be the new pattern of his days. It won’t be, because however happy Pierce had been to see him tonight it was only the result of having been the one to bring McIntyre, and would thus be short-lived. The brief touches and easy conversation of the evening would be too much to hope to see sustained. He closes his eyes and commits the ones he has to memory, storing them alongside much less pleasant but no less treasured split seconds in Korea, moments where he let Pierce in- voluntarily or because the other man shouldered past his walls like a battering ram. Pain rears up again, trying to sharpen into pointed barbs he can fling out and be rid of it. This time, it won’t be honed or dispersed. It’s _his_ , and it is staying with him.  


The voices stop, eventually, and the burning jealousy floods back in, making him close his eyes and go still, refusing to listen for softer tell-tale sounds. The darkness doesn’t help, encouraging his other senses to reach out, and he realizes again that the robe he is wrapped in smells of Hawkeye’s aftershave, his skin. It’s a scent he lived with every day, never thought to miss until he no longer had it beside him- the aftershave is cheap, but the man who wears it is priceless. Charles rolls over again, folding his hands over his eyes. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, telling himself he’s not simply taking as much of that familiar scent in as he can.  


There’s a quiet knock at the door, and then it opens. “Hiya,” Hawkeye’s voice is soft as Charles struggles to sit up, blinking.  


“Pierce?” He murmurs. “Is everything alright?”  


“Yeah,” Hawkeye’s voice is quiet. “Sorry if we kept you up,”  


“Not at all,” he lies.  


Hawkeye sits at the foot of the bed with a heavy sigh. “It’s stupid,” he says quietly. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see him again, and to know he didn’t just leave and never think about me again. But I- I’m more relieved, and- confused. I spent a whole war thinking he just forgot about me, and I couldn’t make sense of it, because he always cared about me. Told me so. So learning he _did_ write, and _wanted_ to talk to me, it made sense. But you. Goddamn you, why are you always so complicated?” He laughs, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I’d have thought you couldn’t _wait_ to forget about me. But you call me, all the time. _You_ call _me_.” Charles flinches as he says it, but Hawkeye continues, “and here you are three hours out of your way towing a guy you can’t stand. To see me. What am I supposed to get from that?”  


“Nothing.” Winchester snaps, sitting up properly, trying to out-maneuver the feeling of vulnerability that’s crept up on him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have called- whatever Daniel had said earlier, perhaps he _didn’t_ help, wasn’t wanted- well, that would be familiar. “McIntyre would have been insufferable until he came.”  


“That’s not what you said earlier,” Hawkeye argues back. “I may be crazy, but my memory’s still good,”  


“ _Don’t_ \- Pierce, don’t make jokes about-”  


Hawkeye’s hand is on his knee. “Have you ever known me _not_ to joke about the important things?” he smiles. “Can’t you call me Hawkeye? Or Ben?”  


Surprised into compliance, Charles repeats, “Ben.”  


“There,” it’s a brilliant smile, one that can be seen in the dark, and part of him aches to touch it, but the other is screaming at him to fling up his walls, block out that smile and everything associated with it. He is realizing, belatedly, that he is on a precipice, looking at Ben standing on the other side. “I don’t think I can sleep. Come and sit up with me?”  


He aches for this man, and any possible explanation of his sleeplessness. “Very well,” he turns the covers back. Stepping off of precipices is not his forte, but for Ben- he has already fallen, what matter does one more tumble make? “I- ah, apologize for my attire.”  


“Charles, again, I’ve seen it. Call me jaded, but I’m not going to faint away at the sight of your ankles. Or your knees,” he grins as they step into the hallway. “Not that they aren’t nice knees. And head shoulders and toes,”  


“A pity,” Charles murmurs, mind turning fast as he draws the borrowed robe closed. “I have smelling salts in the car,”  


Hawkeye laughs. “Just waiting for an occasion to use them, huh?”  


Charles smiles thinly in return. “Honoria gave them to me. A commentary on my Victorian sensibilities. I am awaiting a moment when they become useful,”  


“So you can gloat?”  


“Something like that.”  


They settle in the front room, Hawkeye with his arms folded loosely, propped against the fireplace mantle, Charles on the sofa. “Thanks for coming,”  


“I am… glad it is not an intrusion.”  


Shaking his head, Pierce says, “You know you can come whenever you want, right? The things- we may not get along the easiest, when we’re both terrified and sick of dirt and blood and death, but I always liked you. Even better now that you don’t start screaming at every minor inconvenience.”  


Charles ducks his face, blushing. “I… apologize. I am aware I was rather… difficult.”  


“You were scared.” He shrugs one shoulder. “So were we all. Hell, I took it out on you first. What’d it take, a minute before I started making fun of your accent? It’s like… running on too little sleep, except I did it for three years. No wonder some screws shook loose in the old gear box, running hot like that for so long.”  


“For whatever it may be worth, I always liked you, too. Juvenile as your sense of humor is. I have always admired your… tenacity.”  


Hawkeye laughs. “Like a bulldog, me. Clamp down and don’t let go.”  


“You are thinking of pitbulls. Bulldogs have jowls.”  


“Always pictured you with an English Bulldog. You’d give it some name like Hippocrates. Hell at the dog park.”  


Charles looks up, smiling slightly. “I… have never had a pet. My family kept guard dogs, and I once bought Honoria a cat she managed to keep secret for nearly a year.”  


Hawkeye frowns. “What happened after the year?”  


“When our parents found it, they… disapproved. A friend of hers took it home.” Louise McIntyre, actually, but that’s neither here nor there.  


Pierce’s voice is soft. “Oh. You know, I’m starting to think I hate your parents.”  


“They are _good_ people,” Charles insists. “They simply aren’t… very good parents.” He isn’t sure he’s ever said it aloud before, except perhaps to Honoria, sitting on their new kitchen floor celebrating their independence with take-out food and champagne.  


“Well, my dad would love to have you, if you ever want to borrow him.” Pierce smiles. “Just try to have him back by midnight. Turns back into a pumpkin, you know.”  


Charles wishes he could hold Pierce, cradle him to his chest and never let go. “You are… unfailingly kind.”  


“I dunno about ‘unfailingly.’” Hawkeye says, and Charles can’t contradict that, not honestly- they are both complicated, broken men, with pieces that don’t fit exactly the way they used to, puzzles with patterns too complicated to line the edges up and make anything sensible.  


Silence fills the space between them for a moment, and then Hawkeye turns the radio on. He grins, laughing. “You know this one?”  


Charles listens for a moment. _’Will my heart be broken, when night meets the morning sun,’_ the radio sings, and he inclines his head. “I do. I, ah, escorted Honoria to a dance hall,”  


“You took your sister dancing?” Hawk’s smile is soft as he leans on the mantle.  


Letting himself smile back, looking at his hands, Charles nods. “She- she’s quite relieved to have me back. Though I am not certain she got… all the pieces.”  


“Wanna build some new ones?” Hawkeye is holding his hand out, a look on his face that Winchester has seen a thousand times, right before the other doctor donned gladiatorial armor for something foolish and brave and kind, and more often than not drug the bureaucracy of his enemies behind his chariot at the end of the day.  


He thinks, _this is a bad idea_ , there may not be gods watching from the walls of Troy but his heart is equally impenetrable and equally vulnerable, he knows it would be razed; leave it to Hawkeye to build a hollow horse- the metaphor in his mind grinds to a halt when the other surgeon draws him to his feet, their fingers tangled.  


“I’m not as good a dancer as you,” Hawkeye smiles as his free hand finds Charles’ shoulder. “So you should probably lead.”  


Charles smiles thinly. “Will you follow?” He starts to move, avoiding the chairs and the edges of the coffee table, aware of Hawkeye’s too-big steps.  


“Sure I will. Doing my best.” That smile hasn’t changed, like a sunrise over the harbor, and Hawk ducks his head to watch their feet. “Is this a one-two-three one-two-three or-”  


“It’s an ‘I’ve missed you every day since I last saw you,’” Charles admits quietly, his mouth close to Ben’s ear, the Shirelles no longer singing, something he doesn’t know coming from the radio. His heart is beating louder than the little box on the mantle could manage to be, anyway.  


Hawkeye looks up sharply. “I thought I’d have to work a lot harder to drag that out of you,” he returns, smiling softly, and the hand on Charles’ shoulder moves to caress the back of his neck, fingertips brushing his curls. “Was it just that obvious how bad I needed to hear it?”  


“No,” Charles tells him. “Just the right amount. Enough that I… I realized precisely one second ago that you wouldn’t be upset, if I- if I felt the need to say it.”  


Ben’s eyes are bright, those sparkling eyes- a different blue than his own, and one he wants to spend hours categorizing, matching to poetry and oil paintings. He thinks it might _almost_ be one of Manet’s sea-scapes. “I’m glad you did,” Ben murmurs, and his head tilts in a way that sends echoes of butterfly wings through every inch of Charles. How often did he see that mannerism deployed on the nurse of the week, the way Hawkeye’s hands come up to grasp his upper arms, _but he never had to look up before_ , Charles thinks to himself, and then Hawk is on his toes, their noses brushing, and Charles’ eyes flutter shut as his heart stutters in his chest. “Can I-” Ben swallows audibly. “Can I kiss you, Charles?”  


He thinks it’s fair that his answer is a motion rather than a sound- it’s entirely too easy to close the minute distance, feeling Hawkeye’s stubble against his mouth, both of them over-eager, Hawkeye’s right hand is in Charles’ hair and his left arm is wrapped around broad shoulders while Charles’ hand is fisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him close and keeping him there, the other hand cupping his jaw. “Pierce,”  


“No, no. Now you _have_ to call me by my first name,” Hawkeye’s grin is bright, happy, and his hand is stroking through what remains of Charles’ curls, his thumb at the nape of the Bostonian’s neck.  


“Ben.”  


“Would have thought you’d go with Benjamin. Harder to say, higher class. Isn’t that how it works, Chaahhles?” he leans up for another kiss, too fast, still smiling.  


Rolling his eyes as his thumb strokes Hawk- Ben’s- cheek, Charles bends to softly return the favor. “I couldn’t possibly comment,”  


“To think, all I ever had to do to get my way was kiss you quiet.”  


“I doubt the Colonel would have taken kindly to that sort of behavior,”  


“If it shut _you_ up?” Hawkeye hasn’t stopped smiling, but he takes Charles’ face in his hands, pressing too hard and squishing his cheeks. “Fuck me, you’re adorable. You look like a fish. I’ve never wanted to kiss a fish before. ‘Cept maybe the first time I caught one when I came home. Or those singing ones- you know, that go-”  


“Pierce,” Charles rolls his eyes and leans back, escaping the chaos of that grasp. “You may not treat me as your plaything simply because I have kissed you.”  


Hawkeye’s hands are bold and easy, snagging the belt of the borrowed robe and drawing him back in. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not, I’m happy. I’m too happy to care if I’m annoying you by calling you a fish. Cause you’re gonna let me do that again, right?”  


“Call me a fish again?” Charles raises his eyebrows.  


“No, Hahvahd, kiss you,”  


“Ah, in that case, yes,” and that lonely ache is back, suddenly, because Hawkeye is asking questions about _next_ , and he knows what comes _after_.  


With a wide, manic smile, Hawkeye says, “how about right now?”  


“Right now?”  


“ _Kiss you_ , Charles, keep up,” he’s still smiling when he uses the lapels of the robe to hold Charles close, kissing him again. “Fuck, I’ve been wanting to do this for- I don’t know, I can’t even remember when it stopped being wanting to kiss you quiet and started being just wanting to kiss you, one time I almost reached over the top of the shower stall.”  


Feeling like he is holding a ghost, afraid that Ben will disappear when he _knows_ \- he knows Hawkeye’s reputation better than anyone, and he knows he doesn’t fit the mold- Charles kisses him desperately. Holds his face in his hands and presses his lips to Ben’s over and over, murmurs back, “‘I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.’”  


“That’s… Austen,”  


“ _Pride and Prejudice_ ,”  


Ben laughs, burying his face in Charles’ neck. “Perfect.” He drags his mouth across Charles’ skin, making it tingle, and bites lightly below his ear. “Do you know,” he murmurs, breath ghosting over Winchester’s skin and making him tremble. “How annoying it is that you’re so handsome? Looking up in the middle of a fight and thinking about how badly I wanted to do exactly this,” he kisses sensitive skin and then bites, sucking a mark below Charles’ jaw. “‘M never going to stop now, you know.” His hands are tracing up and down Charles’ back, warm through the robe, pressing the two of them together. “God damn, you’re beautiful.”  


Feeling his cheeks stain pink, Charles ducks his face, burying his nose in Ben’s hair and wrapping the other man tightly in his arms. “Not like you,” he murmurs. “Any direction you are, it is the east,”  


“I don’t go in for the star-crossed lovers thing. Not to mention, you’re more of a Benedick than a Romeo.”  


Charles smiles. “‘A miracle!’” he murmurs against Ben’s ear. “‘Here’s our own hands against our hearts.’”  


“That from Much Ado?”  


A gentle, hopeful kiss on the pale skin below Ben’s ear. “‘Tis,”  


“Sorry. I don’t sit around memorizing books. Some of us do work.”  


“You will remember it once I’ve read it to you.” He wants to build that world, if only for himself, if only for tonight- thinking about Hawkeye with one of his eternal knitting projects beside him on the sofa as he reads from Shakespeare. A bit of daring honesty has gotten him this far- if he dares more it will fall apart. It’s happened before.  


“‘S it true that ‘much ado about nothing’ is a sex joke?”  


“Ah, as far as I know, yes.” He swallows. This will only get harder the longer he waits, and if nothing else he cannot bear the thought of drawing the man in his arms along only to disappoint him later. “I don’t go in for that sort of thing. At- at all.”  


Hawkeye leans back, looking up at him with a furrowed brow. “Charles?”  


“I don’t… much care for anything further than, ah, than this. I mean… sexually. Never particularly have.” _Now I see the mystery of your loneliness,_ he thinks to himself, Shakespeare again, and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. “I’m- sorry.”  


“Charles,” Hawkeye just laughs at him, rises on his toes and bumps their noses together. “What _for_?” He waits until Charles opens his eyes again and says, "I lived in your back pocket for two years, you think I didn't notice how often you _didn't_ come in at midnight? I know you. I know who I love."  


_Love_? “You-”  


“Too soon?”  


_“Finally,”_  


“Too late?”  


“Never.” He says, eyes wide with relief and something approaching giddy ecstasy, and Ben kisses him, soft, then leans back, looking at him almost shyly. Charles draws Ben to him again, one hand at the small of his back, pulling him in tight and kissing him for everything he’s worth- and as a Winchester, it’s quite a lot. Softly, he whispers, “Thank you,”  


“Thank me? Thank _you_ , my god, how did I never know you could kiss like that?”  


“You never asked,” Charles’ lips curve up. “But now you know. I can see I’ll be furthering your education.”  


Hawkeye grins. “Oh, yeah. Take me to museums and stuff, show me what’s what. And I’ll take you fishing. We can catch lobster.”  


“That sounds…”  


“Like work?” Ben laughs. “It is. But it’s fun, too, and when you’re done you have lobster. Hard to argue with that.” He leans up to kiss softly, tugging at Charles’ bottom lip with his teeth. “I wanna do so many things with you. I’m gonna drive you all the way out to the middle of the woods and we’ll camp.”  


“Pierce, we _lived_ in a tent for two years, why should I sleep in one in my free time?”  


With a bite under Charles’ jaw that makes him yelp and jump back, Hawkeye grins, “Ben. And because you can see the stars. And I can make french toast on a camp stove. And we can share a sleeping bag. If you want.”  


“You’ve thought about this.”  


Hawkeye lets out a gusty sigh that turns into a laugh. “All the time. Haven’t you?”  


“I tend to imagine _not_ being _bitten_ ,” Charles puts his fingers under Ben’s jaw, tilting his face up. Something is defiant in his eyes, but the expression is no less sweet for it. “Are you aware of what a contradiction you are?”  


“Best of times, worst of times,”  


Using his hold on Ben’s face to keep him still, Charles leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth gently, murmur, “‘it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,’” he trails his lips carefully across Hawkeye’s, savoring as Ben’s mouth falls open under his touch. “‘It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,’” he stops to seal their lips, nipping softly at Ben’s lower lip and making him shake before he kisses lightly over his jaw, whispers, “‘it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,’” he is working his way down Hawkeye’s neck, feeling his pulse jump below his lips, and ends by delivering a none-too-gentle bite to the delicate skin below his ear, saying, “‘we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,’”  


Breathless, Hawkeye holds him tight. “You’re going to give me a Dickens fixation,”  


“You _have_ one of those.” Charles laughs at him, smirk curling against the shell of Ben’s ear, and Hawkeye makes a breathless little sound that ought to be a giggle but is far too intimate for so ridiculous a word, burying his face in the Bostonian’s shoulder. “I’d rather hoped you might pick up a fondness for Charleses.”  


“Charlesi?”  


“People called Charles,” The eye-roll is _audible_.  


“I like Charlesi. But I don’t think I’ll need the plural,” Hawkeye noses under his jaw, pressing light kisses over his neck, making him tip his head back. “I know you’re pretty used to being the third, but can I make you number one? Charles the best?”  


“Flatterer,”  


“You’ve always been more than willing to be flattered, don’t start pretending to mind,”  


“You have never flattered me honestly before, allow me time to adjust,”  


Hawkeye squeezes him. “Hey, I flattered you all the time. You just thought I was kidding.”  


Charles turns his face to nose through Hawkeye’s hair and murmur in his ear, “You very often were.”  


“‘M not now.”  


“I should hope not. This would be a very elaborate prank, even by your standards.”  


One of Hawkeye’s hands goes around his shoulder, moves over his back and settles at the dip of his spine, between his shoulder blades. “Always liked you here,” he murmurs, thumb stroking. “Used to watch your shoulders when you’d be arguing with somebody else, the way you put your hands in your pockets and held your spine so straight.”  


“ _I_ have good posture. You ought to try it,”  


Hawkeye deliberately goes limp in his arms, leaning heavily against him, and Charles rocks back to take his weight.  


_“Pierce,”_  


“Ben.” He sets his chin on Charles’ chest, looking up at him. “Spine was good enough the way it was before, huh? Miss it now?”  


“You are _absurd_. And heavy.”  


“You just have a bad back, don’t blame it on me,”  


“We are discussing _your_ spine, or sudden lack thereof,”  


“Ah, the army always told me I was spineless,” he laughs but gets his feet back under himself, straightening his spine. “Charles?”  


“Hm?”  


“I… I wanna do something with you. But I know I can kinda, race ahead, you know? So- I like just standing here, but pretty soon my legs are gonna get tired, so I- well, normally I’d take you to bed, but if you don’t want- what do _you_ want?” Ben’s arms are tight around him, expression expectant and soft.  


The way he _aches_ for this makes him ashamed, the desire to beg to never be let go- it’s not something a Winchester should consider pleading for. Still, he feels as though if Ben lets him go he will take pieces with him, _’things fall apart, the center cannot hold’_ …  


“I want…” He swallows thickly. When was the last time someone asked what he wanted? Worse, when was the last time he’d asked himself? “Just to hold you.”  


“We can do that,” Hawkeye rubs his face against Charles’ neck. “Anything y’want. Or _don’t._ ” He says meaningfully. “Man of my reputation, it’ll be a change to keep my hands to myself, but anywhere you don’t want ‘em, all you have to do is say so,”  


Charles smiles, ducks his face into Ben’s shoulder, holding him tightly. “You don’t think it’s…” he pauses, breathing deeply, the DSM heavy on his mind the way it is on his medical shelf. “Abnormal?”  


Hawkeye takes his face in his hands, talking too fast. “Honey, sweetie- oh I hate both of those, _never_ let me say that to you again- everything about you is out of the ordinary. But none of it is _abnormal_ , you know? You’re my favorite kinda crazy. Can I be yours too?”  


Charles turns his face, pressing Hawkeye’s hand to his mouth. “Thank you,” he says softly into the other doctor’s palm, calloused in a way his own has never been. “And haven’t I told you? You’ve always been my favorite.”  


“Mm, between me an’ BJ? High praise,”  


“Between you and _everyone_ , you ass,” he bends to kiss Ben again, harder this time, biting his lower lip. “You are insufferable.”  


Ben laughs. “See, only you could say I’m your favorite and then tell me I’m insufferable.”  


“Perhaps I should have added another ‘I love you?’”  


“That would do it,” he agrees, reaching up to wrap his arms around Charles’ shoulders, stepping close, warm against him all the way from his chest to his thighs.  


Into the space between them, Charles murmurs, “I love you,”  


“Much better, now kiss me again and I’ll forgive you,”  


“I wasn’t aware I was absolving myself of any sins,” He rests his hands at Hawkeye’s waist and holds him close.  


“You have a lot of communion to go to,” Hawkeye grins, biting softly at his lower lip. “And I’ve been told I have the body of a god. Body of Christ shouldn’t be too different.”  


“I am going to write a study on the myriad ways you are detrimental to my mental health.”  


“You’d have to take a psychology course for that,”  


“I think the effects are quite obvious enough without the help of Sigmund,”  


“Are you _sure_ that’s not a cigar in your pocket,”  


“If you make one more joke like that, Pierce,”  


“ _Ben_ ,”  


Charles kisses him. “Ben.” He repeats, quiet. “Darling.”  


“‘I like that one,” Hawkeye curls around him, anchoring to his warmth like a holdfast anchoring kelp. “Dahhling.”  


“And in reply?”  


Ben tilts his head. “ _You_ want a pet name?”  


Charles ducks his face, blush staining his cheeks.  


“I can’t… I can’t think of anything nice enough for you. Don’t wanna go around calling you diamond.”  


“Never mind, Pierce, it was an absurd impulse,” his voice is rough, and Hawkeye cuts him off.  


“You can’t call me Pierce, and it’s not stupid. I just can’t… could I just call you love? Like, Charles, love, how are you today?”  


“‘Call me but love, and henceforth I ever shall be,’” _Deny thy father and refuse thy name_ \- he thinks madly that he would give up every syllable of his own for this.  


Hawkeye presses his face into Charles’ shoulder, curling around him. He tips his face up and asks, “Charles, love, will you come visit me every weekend?”  


“Yes,” Charles agrees, catching his mouth in another soft kiss. “Are you expecting that I bring McIntyre each time?”  


Hawkeye laughs, smiling at him and holding tight. “Nah. More of a flowers and chocolate guy, me.”  


Charles reaches up to run his thumb over Hawkeye’s lower lip, fingers curled gently below the other surgeon’s jaw. “Those I can provide.”  


“Good,” Ben smiles, his first finger tracing Charles’ cheekbone, below the bruise. “Can’t have you getting in any more fights over me.”  


“You have a face to launch a thousand ships, darling, you ought to accept now that I may need to defend my claim.”  


“Might wanna take some more karate classes, then. I’m not so sure they stuck the first time,” Ben is smiling, and Charles allows the corner of his mouth to turn up. “Would you- uh, would you come to bed with me? Sometimes I get nightmares.”  


More than familiar with those kinds of nightmares, Charles’ heart seizes. “Of course. We won’t- ah, your dad…”  


“No problem there. I’ll tell you the stories sometime, you’ll do that thing where you go bright red all over,”  


Rolling his eyes, Charles tells him, “it’s called a _blush_ , Pierce, and I do _not_ ,” 

“You _do_ , and it’s more than a blush. Goes down your neck and everything. First time I thought you were cute.” His smile turns into a brilliant grin. “C’mon.”  


Letting himself be led by the hand, Charles is almost dizzy as Hawkeye opens the door to his bedroom, ushers him in and sits him on the bed. He flicks off the lights, but the window is open, and moonlight streams in, making the room feel like the realm of the fairies. “Ben,” he murmurs, still trying the name out, reaching up to cup the other man’s cheek. “I,” he swallows heavily, _I love you_ and _come here_ and _please_ all too hard to say, looking up at Ben this way.  


Hawkeye smiles, tipping his face into the touch. “I’m absolutely crazy for you,” He moves as if to sit, then hesitates. “I- ah, I wanna climb into your lap. Is that- are you okay with that?”  


Tugging him down, Charles murmurs, “yes,” softly, pulling Ben into his lap and holding him tight. “You really are going to treat me as a plaything, aren’t you?” He smiles into Hawkeye’s hair.  


Chuckling, Ben answers, “Only in the sense that I’m going to climb all over you, probably. Promise not to play rough.”  


“I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get,”  


“Damn straight I am,”  


Charles laughs, ducking so he can kiss Ben on the mouth. “You are incorrigible.”  


“No, I’m Ben.” He grins, bright and pleased. “Your Ben.”  


“You are?”  


“Yeah, if that’s alright. You know, if you want me.”  


Gathering Ben to his chest, Charles kisses his forehead. “Have I not made my feelings abundantly clear, darling? I know your games can be rather fast and loose, but Winchesters play for keeps.”  


“You’re not… afraid?”  


Charles’ brow lifts, turning his face into Ben’s hair. It’s nice, to hold him this way. “Of?”  


“Who… I am. Now, I mean, I was different there, especially before-”  


“I am not afraid. I have known you since our return- and I intend to continue to do so. More deeply, better, and for longer.” _Forever, if you’ll let me. If you’ll still love me tomorrow, to borrow a phrase._ His heart skips a beat, a sad sort of desperation. _Tonight you’re mine completely_. “Holding you this way is quite pleasant, you know,” he presses a kiss to Ben’s hair, murmuring softly. “I should like to do it in my library. Drape you across my lap on the canapé and read to you. If you can be persuaded to hold still that long.”  


Ben turns his face into Charles’ neck. “Isn’t a canapé a sort of appetizer thing?”  


“That too. In this case I am referring to the article of furniture, a kind of sofa from 18th century France. Mine is upholstered in blue brocade. It reminded me of your eyes.”  


“You are so fucking pretentious, but that is _really_ sweet. Now I can’t even be mad about what a snob you are.”  


Charles shrugs, feeling Hawkeye pressing gentle, sweet kisses to his neck. “You very well _could_ , but then you would miss out on drinking champagne in my lap.”  


“And how do you know I want that enough to not make fun of you?”  


_I don’t. It’s only that I want you to. Please, please._ It feels like looking at art, or watching someone truly gifted draw music from an instrument; enjoying beauty, appreciating it, _wanting_ it, and knowing the closest he can come is purchasing it. It isn’t the same, it isn’t enough, and Hawkeye has never cared for his money in any case, except to win it at poker. _Tell me what to offer you, and it’s yours_. He presses his face into Ben’s hair, drawing him closer, taking a steadying breath. “Perhaps,” he clears his throat, hating that his voice is an unsteady whisper. “Perhaps,” better this time, more cavalier, stronger- “I would let you. Make fun of me. If you’d consent to sit with me anyway.”  


“Charles,” Ben leans back, studying his face. Charles tries to wipe it blank, knows he doesn’t _quite_ succeed. “You picked furniture that reminded you of me. I’m not going to make fun of you for that. Even if it sounds like it should be food and probably cost more than my house, I’m not- I wouldn’t make fun of you for _caring_.”  


He supposes he doesn’t care enough, if Ben is so surprised by it- _if you knew, darling, how often I looked at you, **caring** more than should have been possible in such a terrible place_… “Oh.”  


“But I _do_ think you have an absurd amount of money. I can’t even fathom- where does it all _go_? What’s the point? Money is made to be _used_ for stuff, what good is it doing just _sitting_ -”  


Interrupting with a gentle kiss, Charles shrugs and tells him, “You may do with it whatever good you please. My parents are aging, as are their children, and neither of us are likely to- provide heirs. If the line is to end, let it go out with a bang.”  


Ben looks at him, a smile creeping over his face. “I’m gonna give it to the Democrats.”  


Charles rolls his eyes. “You’ll have to do that through Honoria’s accounts. To use mine may actually trigger a national security investigation. And I shall expect you to avoid the name _Kennedy_.”  


“Election fraud charges?”  


“More than likely.”  


Ben laughs, throwing his arms around Charles with enough force to knock him backward, both of them sprawling on the bed. “You actually love me.”  


“Yes,” Charles acknowledges, the single word too raw. “I told you, did I not, that you taught me… what it means to come home. I fear I may still be learning… how to be good enough for you. But I am trying.”  


Ben hugs him tighter than he’s ever been held in his life. “I know. You’re doing so well, I’m- I’m _proud_ of you. When you told me about the charity you and Honoria set up, and the kids- I knew you liked kids, but damn if it didn’t break my heart in a whole new way to think about it, never had it feel good to have a broken heart before but thinking about you with all those kids around until they find homes- I knew you had it in you, somewhere under all that- you know, I’m not always so good either. Took out a general’s appendix that didn’t need to come out, once, always have to get the last word, broke a few hearts that didn’t need breaking, can’t take anything as serious as it deserves,”  


“Hush, darling, you need not read me the ledger. I am no St. Peter, and the gates of my heart will stand open for you regardless of your sins. Of which I am sure there are many, mostly of the _lust_ variety,” He tries to laugh as he says it, knowing that tonight he has been honest as he rarely is and it may be to his detriment.  


“I heard that. You’re not as smooth as you think you are, you know? I might have lust down pat, but I don’t do trespass. All you ever need to say is stop and I’ll stop. Took a while to learn that one too.”  


“I do not doubt you have learned it well.”  


Ben’s hand strokes down his chest. “Then what is it? I’m not gonna ask you to do anything you don’t want,”  


“And I will not ask you to give up anything you would miss.”  


“Charles?”  


“I would… I would share you before I lost you.”  


Ben’s hand goes still. “Love…” he swallows hard. “Okay. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but okay. Thank you.”  


They lay quietly in the dark for a long moment, before Ben crawls atop Charles, tucking his head under the Bostonian’s chin. “Will you really take me for a long ride in the Bentley? I’d like to look out at the trees, lean on your shoulder.”  


Charles holds him close, kissing his hair in the dark. “You make it sound like an idyll.”  


“Isn’t it? You and me, in the car, nothing to do and nowhere to be, no chance we’re gonna get interrupted by something awful… sounds pretty damn nice to me. And it’ll be fall soon. We could make a big trip of it, go in a big loop down the coast and come up on backroads, look at the leaves… I know you like the leaves.” Ben wraps his arm around Charles’ waist and buries his face in his chest. “I remember you getting that leaf. Going all soft- you’re so pretty, when you let your walls down like that. I kept sneaking looks at you. Will you look like that when you see the leaves turn colors, now that we’re actually back?”  


“I… I hadn’t realized you watched me so closely,” Charles confesses. “And I should be surprised if my eyes remain entirely dry, particularly if my first sight of New England autumn comes with you wrapped around me.”  


Hawkeye’s hand strokes down his chest, thumb fidgeting with the edge of the robe. “Take this off?”  


Charles laughs into his hair. “You are entirely on top of me; I don’t know how you expect me to move sufficiently. An inverse tale of the torn sleeve.”  


“I don’t know that one,”  


“An emperor who loved his consort sufficiently that when he was called to a meeting and arose, he tore off the sleeve his lover was asleep on rather than wake the man.”  


Smiling and wriggling impossibly closer, Ben says, “I like that story. Tell it to me again when you’re not sleepy and grumpy.”  


“I do not get _grumpy_ ,”  


Untying the robe, Ben sits up, pushing it off Charles’ shoulders. “You do so.”  


Charles sits up enough to get the robe off, tossing it off the bed into the dark. “Happy?”  


Ben pushes his hand under the hem of Charles’ tshirt, curling close with a contented hum as they settle back. “Yeah. You’re warm. You happy?”  


“More than I have ever been in my life,” he kisses Ben’s hair. “Though your hands are _freezing_.”  


“Why did you think I wanted them under your shirt?”  


Charles heaves a sigh. “Ah, so this _was_ all an elaborate ruse. I’m afraid I’m not accustomed to my body heat being the thing I am pursued for. But as it’s you- if I tell you I am even better in winter than the camp stove, will you keep me around long enough to verify my claims?”  


“I’d keep you around even if you turned into a block of ice in winter. The fact that you’re warm is just a bonus.” He squeezes Charles’ hip softly, then turns his hand over to press the back of it to Winchester’s belly. “‘M never letting you out of bed.”  


Covering Hawkeye’s hand with his own to warm it from both sides, Charles scoffs.“I believe our patients might not take kindly to being operated on from a bed.”  


“Bedside manner,” Hawkeye yawns. “Joke’s in there somewhere.”  


“If _you_ are too tired for jokes, darling, the hour must be late indeed. Go to sleep.”  


Tipping his face up, Ben says, “kiss me goodnight one more time?”  


Turning and propping himself on his elbow, Charles tips Ben’s jaw up to meet him, kissing softly, dragging his lips gently over Ben’s cheek when the kiss breaks, feeling the start of stubble. “You are alluring, darling.”  


“Glad you’re lured,” Hawkeye smiles, and Charles folds the pillow over his face.  


“Terrible,” he chuckles, releasing the pillow.  


“Good to know early on that you’re capable of just smothering me when you get tired of me,”  


Charles noses along his jaw. “I doubt it’s a skill I’ll need, darling, I can think of no less boring person in the world. Tiring of you does not seem likely.”  


“Good,” Hawkeye turns over, tucking his hands under his face and wriggling back against Charles. “Hold me. And keep calling me dah-ling.”  


“Gladly.” He gathers Ben to him, pressing a kiss at the back of his neck. “You are so small, darling.”  


“Fuck you. I’m six one.”  


Charles laughs into the back of his neck, soft in the dark. “I… Ben. I adore you.”  


“Funny way of showing it, bastard. Six one isn’t small.” But he turns his head, reaching back to kiss his new bedmate. “I love you, you ridiculously tall asshole.”  


Curling tight around Hawkeye, Charles kisses his shoulder. _If you promise I can be yours, you can call me whatever you like_. “Go to sleep, darling, you’re getting to be grumpy.”  


“‘S your fault.”  


“Of course.”  


He can feel it as Ben’s breathing slows, steadies- he feels as though he holds the heartbeat of the world itself in his arms. Sleep is coming to claim him too, but he flees Queen Mab for the moment, reveling in something he had thought mere hours ago could never be his. Ben fits against him as though he was made to, somehow, his slim hips and long limbs bundled into Charles’ arms. “I love you,” he whispers again, in the dark, heart beating fast with the simple joy of saying it. “I love you.”  


Ben is colder than he is, feet tucked between Charles’ calves, and he feels their body temperatures equalize- there’s a metaphor there somewhere, but he is drifting, and the phrasing he searches for is overwhelmed by the simple feeling.  


There’s a soft tap at the door, and then McIntyre eases it open- the bar of light he lets in lands squarely in Charles’ eyes, and he can’t help reflexively throwing his hand up to block it. The door closes in a hurry, and he settles back with a smug smile.  


He doesn’t have time for many thoughts before sleep takes him, but he does feel a sort of victorious pride that softens into gratitude as he falls asleep, feeling Ben’s chest rise and fall under his hand.  



	5. And Things Yet to Come

Waking up is slow, leisurely. They’ve shifted positions in the night, and Ben’s head is on Charles’ chest, arm over his middle. He looks down at Ben’s relaxed features, brushes his hair back from his forehead, and indulges in a strange prayer of thanks.  


“Mm- morning,” Ben yawns, curling more tightly around him. “Ohhh you’re warm,” he squirms closer, freezing hands back under Charles’ shirt. “How do you _do_ that?” His voice is sleepy, and he yawns.  


“Superior genetics.” Charles covers his hands with his own again, warming them.  


“Bred for terrible cold climates, huh? ‘M gonna put a barrel of whiskey around your neck, then you’ll be perfect.”  


Charles rolls his eyes, turning on his side to gather Ben to him, tipping his jaw up to kiss him good morning. “ _You_ already _are_ perfect.”  


“‘S too early to be competing with me for best compliment.”  


“You compared me to a rescue dog. I hardly find that complimentary.”  


Ben looks up, smiling. “Well, too bad. ‘Til I have coffee it’s as good as you’re getting.”  


With a sigh, Charles concedes. “Very well. Should I go and fetch you coffee?”  


“Good dog.”  


“Don’t be disgusting.”  


Ben laughs, stretching. “Stay here. I don’t wanna stop touching you yet. Feels like I’m dreaming.”  


“Imagine how I feel. You are merely living up to your constant assertions that you could have anyone. _I_ get _you_.”  


Ben tips his face up to bite softly at the spot below Charles’ jaw. “You’re not just anyone, and you know it, and if you keep fishing for compliments I’m gonna sit on you and compliment you until you’re blushing from your toes to the top of your head.”  


“While I can certainly think of worse fates, I believe we’d be at that a very long time, and I have appointments to keep today.”  


“So do I. So hurry up and kiss me more so I have something nice to think about while I go through them.”  


Charles pulls him a few inches up the bed, kissing him gently, their legs tangling beneath the sheets, Ben’s hands on his chest. “Sufficient?”  


“Mm, I think I need a little more daydream material. One more time?”  


“Gladly.” This time he goes slowly, biting at Ben’s lower lip, kissing the corners of his mouth, feeling him tremble slightly, enjoying the way he curls closer, thankful again just to _be here._ “Oh,” Charles shudders as Ben’s cold hands press into his belly. “You are a menace.”  


Hawkeye bites, playful. “Be nice or I’ll kick you out of bed.”  


“I meant it as a compliment.”  


“Ah, menace, affectionately. Never heard that one before.”  


“Of course you have, I say it to you often.”  


“Touché,”  


“I’d prefer the other meaning of _touche_ ,” Charles gives the word its proper pronunciation, drawing Ben’s hands out from under his shirt and kissing them. “ _After_ I warm your hands,” he presses them between his own.  


Hawkeye kisses his chest, soft. “Ah, so it’s a double entendre, hm?”  


“Indeed, you’re good at those,” and he sighs as Ben’s hands push under his shirt again, tracing warm skin with infinite gentleness.  


“You bet I am. Nobody else can touché me,”  


Charles groans. “ _Pierce_ ,”  


“Oh, suddenly you don’t like my puns?”  


“I have _never_ liked your puns.”  


“Don’t lie, you love me for more than my pretty face.”  


“Your wit, when you are not squandering it,” Charles kisses his cheekbone. “And your eyes,” gently pressing his lips just above Ben’s eyebrow. “Your perseverance.” In the middle of his forehead. “Your determination, your honesty.” His nose. “Everything you are, if I am terribly honest,” he gets his arm free of the blankets to wrap it around Ben, drawing him in close and kissing him on the mouth.  


“Forget silver-tongued,” Ben murmurs against his lips, hands braced on Charles’ hips, fingers under his shirt. “Yours must be made of solid gold,”  


Charles smirks. “No doubt.”  


“You mean you haven’t had it valued?” Hawkeye prevents him answering by kissing him, so long and deep that he’s left gasping when Ben finally pulls back. “Yep. Solid gold.”  


Staring at him with a smile more fond than exasperated, Charles strokes his cheek. “You really are a menace.”  


“But you love me.”  


“I do.”  


“Good.” Ben yawns. “Any nightmares?”  


Charles considers whether to lie, but he doubts that there’s any point, with Ben. “Some, but certainly not as intense as sleeping without you.”  


“Wish I could make them go away completely. I think you chased mine off, for the night.”  


Holding him close, Charles sighs. “‘Our wills and fates do so contrary run…’” he rubs Ben’s back gently, tracing the sharp planes of his shoulders. “Believe me when I tell you that you have markedly improved my quality of life, even in one night, regardless of whether you keep the nightmares at bay.”  


“‘M glad. I know I can’t just… snap my fingers and make it better. Sleep curled up in you and make everything okay. But holding you feels like things _should_ be okay.”  


“The world so rarely behaves as expected,” Charles sighs. “Though I agree, waking to you is making me rather given to believe that this day will be a good one, as will any other I begin thusly.” He kisses Ben’s hair again, feeling cold hands move over his skin.  


Ben hums against his mouth. “You kiss nice.” He yawns, rolling over. “Oh, god. Forget dad- I have to look _Trap_ in the eyes.”  


Charles laughs. “Or I could put him in the trunk. I considered it yesterday… He tried to come in last night, you know. Did you arrange a secondary rendez-vous in case your scheme for me failed to come to fruition?”  


Ben shoves at him, playful. “You know I don’t need back-ups, babydoll, you’re a sure thing,” he yawns, grinning.  


“ _Don’t_ call me babydoll.”  


Burying his face in Charles’ chest, Ben laughs. “But you are a sure thing.”  


“For you? Quite.”  


“‘S it gonna make the drive back to Boston uncomfortable? Because I don’t mind if you want to sneak out the back door, have someone else come pick him up later.”  


Charles shrugs, threading his fingers through Ben’s hair. “If either of us suffers discomfort, it will not be me. I am quite accustomed to having things everyone else wants.”  


“You’re gonna have to beat ‘em off with a stick over me,”  


“I shall acquire a large stick.”  


Hawkeye laughs. “‘Walk softly, and carry a big stick.’ Right? FDR?”  


“Do _not_ quote that abominable man to me,”  


“Jesus, I forgot how you are before coffee, come on,” he rolls out of bed, reaching out to tug at Charles’ hand.  


Yawning, he tugs back. “Come back to bed, darling,”  


“Oh, you’re not charming your way out of this one, time waits for no man; I have appointments in an hour and you have to go back to Boston. Come on.”  


Sitting up and turning, Charles pulls Ben into his lap. “There. Compromise.”  


“This isn’t compromise, this is bribery,”  


“Mm, is it?” Charles kisses his neck, yawning.  


“Like you don’t know. Come on, love, I’ll even make my world-famous French toast,” he struggles to his feet, escaping Winchester’s grasp. “C’mon,” he picks up the robe from the floor and drops it in Charles’ lap. “Daytime.”  


Charles stretches. “Time is a construct, you know. I’m sure I could bribe your patients into changing their appointment times. Or _dates_ , for that matter, and you could stay in bed, with me.”  


Ben laughs. “You really are adorable. And you have no idea how tempting that is- but I’m a doctor first, and so are you. Let’s not start by forgetting that- _god_ I could forget the world with you.”  


“Perhaps someday I shall convince you to do just that. In Paris, by the Seine, with macarons and champagne.”  


“Why do all your fantasies involve me and champagne?”  


Charles smiles, shrugging into the robe. “Perhaps I’m given to decadence.”  


“I can agree with that. Well, I’m just glad you count me among the finer things. Finest kind.” He opens the door, and Charles follows him down the hallway, drawing the borrowed robe closed with a yawn. “Coffee, love?” Ben is walking backward, looking at him with a beautiful softness in his eyes, and Charles sees McIntyre over his shoulder, the blond’s eyes wide.  


He smirks. “Please, darling.”  


“What’s funny?” Hawkeye spins. “Oh- heya, Trap,”  


Trapper gestures with his coffee cup. “Uh huh,”  


“I’m gonna make French toast- want some?”  


“Sure,”  


“Morning paper here yet?”  


“Yeah. Not much in it up here, huh?”  


Charles leans on the counter and watches _his_ Ben spin about the kitchen, finding ingredients, banging pots and pans in the disastrous cupboard as he searches for his ideal. “Coffee, darling,” he prompts.  


“Right! Yes, sorry, love,” he grins, manic-bright, and Charles reaches over to tug at the hem of his shirt affectionately. Perhaps a little possessively, knowing McIntyre is watching.  


“Calm down. It is far too early for your nonsense.”  


Ben sticks his tongue out. “You like my nonsense.”  


“I will deny everything.”  


Handing over coffee, his voice is almost sing-song. “You think my nonsense is fun,”  


“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘fun.’ Perhaps you define losing sleep for two years out of fear of waking to your bunkmate physically climbing on you as ‘fun,’ but I certainly do not.”  


“I never minded when you climbed the walls.” Trapper mutters into his mug, staring at the paper laid out on the table.  


Daniel comes into the kitchen with a yawn, adjusting his thick glasses. “What’s all the racket you boys are making?”  


“French toast,” Hawkeye grins. “Morning, dad. Coffee?”  


“Sure,” Daniel yawns again, settling at the table. “Anything good in the paper?”  


McIntyre shrugs, looking into his coffee. “I dunno, ‘m not up on the doings of Crabapple Cove.”  


“Oh, well.” Daniel tugs at the corner of the paper. “In that case, do you mind? I’m waiting to see a couple wedding announcements. Babies I delivered, getting married.”  


Charles likes that idea, somehow, knowing people long enough for them to go through their lives. Watching children grow up. He looks at Ben, watching him cook, the way he moves somehow elegant, though he looks like his joints are connected with bits of string and crude pulleys. _You are beautiful, I adore you, my darling_ \- he quiets the words that want to spill out, but not because he thinks any longer that they would be unwelcome. He will write them in a letter, when he arrives home, to tell Ben all the things he is thinking now that he cannot say in front of Daniel and McIntyre.  


Breakfast is an odd affair, with Trapper casting them knowing and disappointed looks, Daniel’s eyes getting sharper as he drinks his coffee, approval obvious in his smiles. And Ben, who holds up a forkful of French toast and says, “You’re about to understand what I was raving about for two years.”  


Charles accepts that his dignity is flown, in a borrowed robe in a small house in Maine, and can’t find any reason to care as he is fed French toast. “It’s excellent,” he agrees. “Not a dish I’m especially familiar with- will you teach me to make it this way? The way you like it,”  


“Of course,” Ben beams at him, and Charles can see in his eyes that he is owed a kiss, whenever they find themselves alone again. “So, you think you can manage three hours flat headed back?”  


“I doubt we’re likely to encounter morning commute traffic, here,” Charles smirks. “And by the time we get back to Boston we shall have well missed the worst of it. Perhaps I can cut the time down to two and three quarters hours.”  


Daniel raps the back of his hand with his knuckles, not unkindly. “Drive safe, or I won’t trust you to get yourself back up here.”  


“Yes, sir,” Charles nods seriously and gets another rap on the knuckles for his trouble.  


“Don’t call me sir,”  


Ben laughs, hooking his foot around Charles’ leg below the table. “Keep that car in one piece, will you? It’s way too nice to be trying to break the sound barrier in.”  


“You were not so averse to speed yesterday,”  


Daniel looks between them. “You didn’t take him out the gulch, did you?”  


Ben ducks his head. “Maybe,”  


“Ben, that’s hardly a first date spot.”  


Charles chokes on his French toast.  


“Don’t let the glasses fool you, son, I may be blind but I’m not _blind_.” Daniel laughs at him as he tries to clear his airways. “Make him take you out the old highway next time, that’s much prettier.”  


“I- ah, I will,” he clears his throat, avoiding McIntyre’s eyes.  


The meal goes quickly after that, Hawkeye’s left hand on Charles’ thigh, and when he goes back to the guest bedroom to change he finds himself with company, Ben pressing him back against the door. “Sorry about dad. He thinks he’s funny.”  


“He passed that on to his son,” Charles strokes messy hair away from Ben’s face. “I shall miss you.”  


“Not for long, right?”  


Charles wraps his hands around Ben’s waist. “No. For as little time as I can possibly manage. This weekend I have a gala and a fundraiser, but I don’t believe I have any appointments next Thursday or Friday. Perhaps I could take a long weekend, and we could drive down the coast?”  


“I’ll take Monday and Tuesday off. So you can show me Boston.”  


Bending to kiss him gently, Charles murmurs, “perfect.”  


“I’m gonna miss you until then.”  


“Call me whenever you like.”  


“Phone operator’s gonna get tired of me.”  


Charles smiles. “But _I_ shall not, so what matter does it make?”  


“None, I guess.”  


“Precisely. Now, will you allow me to dress?”  


Ben smooths his hands down Charles’ chest, on his toes to kiss him gently, and then steps back. “Fine. I’m glad you came.”  


“As am I, darling,” he presses a kiss to the back of Ben’s hand and does his best not to feel any more self-conscious than he did in Korea as he dresses. “Say hello to George, if he does indeed visit today.”  


“He will. Gracie’s always in the garden, he likes helping her. If his back’s making that too hard, he’ll want it fixed as soon as he can. Have I ever told you how nice you look all unbuttoned?”  


Charles smiles. “Ah, no.”  


“Well, you do. Remember that time you hung around in your boxers and tshirt? Proving a point about BJ and me being so messy, I think, but I was absolutely- I think I started _vibrating_ every time I looked at you. It didn’t make me any less frustrated with you, let me tell you. Made me so damn mad to see you being all gorgeous and superior- especially when you were _right_. Sorry BJ and I were such a mess all the time.”  


Laughing, Charles leaves off buttoning his cuffs to cup Ben’s jaw. “You and I are very similar,”  


“Which way do you mean?”  


“You didn’t want to like me as much as you did, hm? I vividly recall being shaken awake and called ‘stinky’ before you put toothpaste and feathers in my shoe.”  


Hawkeye laughs back, turning his face to kiss Charles’ palm. “How does that make us similar?”  


“Only in that I should have preferred a firing squad to telling you I loved you, then.”  


“How about now? Should I find my service weapon?”  


“I thought you fired it,”  


Hawkeye laughs, pleased with the joke, and steps into his arms again, holding him tight. “I did, it’s been on the job market for a while. Rough time for service weapons. No demand for gun: never been shot.”  


Charles rolls his eyes. “I love you.”  


Ben’s voice is quiet, speaking against Charles’ shoulder as he says, “I love you too. You really are gonna come visit, right?”  


_I will not leave you._ “As soon as possible, darling. And if you get tired of waiting, please come down. There is nothing I would like better than to come home to you at the end of a day.”  


Ben kisses his neck. “You’re a sap.”  


“I am a Romantic,”  


“How can I _hear_ you capitalize a word,”  


“My diction is phenomenal.”  


“That’s not all that’s phenomenal about you, love. Can I really come visit?”  


Charles holds him tightly, kissing his hair. “If you like. You have my address. If I am not home, Honoria will very likely interrogate you.”  


“I’ll take that risk.”  


“I should like to see you, then, anytime you are free.”  


Ben steps back, looking up at him with a bright smile. “Haven’t you heard? War’s over, we’re all free.”  


Rolling his eyes, Charles finishes buttoning his cuffs. “I am yet bound to a three hours’ journey with McIntyre.”  


“Well, just think of me. I’m gonna be thinking about you all day. Love the way you smell. ‘S gonna be on my clothes, in my bed… I might actually cancel my appointments and just lay there.”  


“I am quite pleased that you enjoy my cologne, but you must be a doctor first, darling.”  


“Fine,” Ben follows him into the main room, watches him shrug into his jacket and pat his pockets for the keys to the Bentley, his address book, wallet. “Do you hafta go?”  


Charles reaches out, brushing his fingers lightly down the side of Ben’s face. “Unfortunately, yes, but I shall see you as soon as can be arranged.” He drops his hand, looking around the house. “McIntyre!” He calls. “We shall very shortly be in the way of patients. Come along!”  


In answer, McIntyre thumps down from the loft, coming into the main house with his tie between his teeth. “‘Scuse a guy for getting dressed.” He’s tucking in his shirt. “Hawk, good to see you, call me sometime.” And he turns and walks out.  


“He is truly glad to see you, darling,” Charles reassures Ben, feeling smug in his laurels. “I believe we’ve discomfited him.”  


Ben shrugs. “Trap’s a great guy, and all, but if I had to choose…” he bumps his shoulder into Charles’. “You two really gonna be okay in the car?”  


“Yes. If not, I shall make him walk.”  


Hawkeye laughs. “Don’t. At least get him a cab.”  


“For you, darling,”  


“I love you.”  


“As I love you. Walk me to the car?”  


“Caahh,” Ben repeats as he opens the front door to find Daniel on the porch. Trapper is visible already settled in the passenger seat of the Bentley, and Ben goes to bend and talk into the side window when Daniel takes Charles by the elbow.  


“Son? I’m glad you got over whatever it was that was making you so afraid.”  


Charles blinks, a tight feeling that’s almost tears crawling up on him. It feels quite similar to receiving his red hat for Christmas, from Mulcahy. What he has received here, too, he will treasure. “Ah- thank you, Dr. Pierce. As- as am I.”  


“Call me Daniel.”  


“Daniel.”  


Holding his hand out, Hawkeye’s dad smiles up at Charles. “You’re not so bad, you know. Might try letting people see that once in a while.”  


Charles shakes his hand, nodding. “I shall… try.”  


“Good. Drive safe. And bring your sister next time.” Daniel pats his shoulder and turns, heading back into the house. Charles goes down the steps, looking back at the man who’d been a better dad in one night than his own father had been in over thirty years.  


Beside the car, apparently unable to restrain himself, Hawkeye throws his arms around Charles’ neck. “See you soon?”  


“Within days, darling,”  


“I love you,”  


Charles smiles, kissing his forehead. “It’s quite mutual, Ben.”  


He climbs into the car, turning to look out the rear window as he backs down the driveway, turning back to wave goodbye before they pull away.  


McIntyre stares out the window, but as they find the highway south he clears his throat. “So, uh,”  


_“No.”_  


“Right.”  


The rest of the drive back to Boston is quiet.  



End file.
